nd the conservation of mere habit or custom,
religion will also, of course, emphasize the same things; but in a
progressive society religion can as easily attach its sanctions to
social ideals and standards beyond the existing order as to those
actually realized. Such an idealistic religion will, however, have the
disadvantages of appealing mainly to the progressive and idealizing
tendencies of human nature rather than to its conservative and
reactionary tendencies. Necessarily, also, it will appeal more strongly
to those enlightened classes in society who are leading in social
progress rather than to those who are content with things as they are.
This is doubtless the main reason why progressive religions are
exceedingly rare in human history, taking it as a whole, and have
appeared only in the later stages of cultural evolution.

Nevertheless, there are good reasons for believing that the inevitable
evolution of religion has been in a humanitarian direction, and that
there is an intimate connection between social idealism and the higher
religions. There are two reasons for this generalization. The social
life becomes more complex with each succeeding stage of upward
development, and groups have therefore more need of commanding the
unfailing devotion of their members if they are to maintain their unity
and efficiency as groups. More and more, accordingly, religion in its
evolution has come to emphasize the self-effacing devotion of the
individual to the group in times of crisis. And as the complexity of
social life increases, the crises increase in which the group must ask
the unfailing service and devotion of its members. Thus religion in its
upward evolution becomes increasingly social, until it finally comes to
throw supreme emphasis upon the life of service and of self-sacrifice
for the sake of the group; and as the group expands from the clan and
the tribe to humanity, religion necessarily becomes less tribal and more
humanitarian until the supreme object of the devotion which it
inculcates must ultimately be the whole of humanity.

III. INVESTIGATIONS AND PROBLEMS

1. Social Control and Human Nature

Society, so far as it can be distinguished from the individuals that
compose it, performs for those individuals the function of a mind. Like
mind in the individual man, society is a control organization. Evidence
of mind in the animal is the fact that it can make adjustments to new
conditions. The evidence t