ncies will be eradicated only by
the recognition of human duty, of the social bond. Religion has not
eradicated them, but science, by tracing them to their source in our
brute ancestry, has explained them and has shown them in their true
light. As each recognises that the anti-social tendencies are the
bestial tendencies in man, and that man in evolving further must
evolve out of these, each also feels it part of his personal duty to
curb these in himself, and so to rise further from the brute. This
rational 'co-operation with Nature' distinguishes the scientific from
the religious person, and this constraining sense of obligation is
becoming stronger and stronger in all those who, in losing faith in
God, have gained hope for man."[21]

For this rational setting of oneself on the side of the forces working
for evolution implied active co-operation by personal purity and
nobility." To the Atheist it seems that the knowledge that the
perfecting of the race is only possible by the improvement of the
individual, supplies the most constraining motive which can be
imagined for efforts after personal perfection. The Theist may desire
personal perfection, but his desire is self-centred; each righteous
individual is righteous, as it were, alone, and his righteousness does
not benefit his fellows save as it may make him helpful and loving in
his dealings with them. The Atheist desires personal perfection not
only for his joy in it as beautiful in itself, but because science has
taught him the unity of the race, and he knows that each fresh
conquest of his over the baser parts of his nature, and each
strengthening of the higher, is a gain for all, and not for himself
alone."[22]

Besides all this, the struggle against evil, regarded as transitory
and as a necessary concomitant of evolution, loses its bitterness. "In
dealing with evil, Atheism is full of hope instead of despair. To the
Christian, evil is as everlasting as good; it exists by the permission
of God, and, therefore, by the will of God. Our nature is corrupt,
inclined to evil; the devil is ever near us, working all sin and all
misery. What hope has the Christian face to face with a world's
wickedness? what answer to the question, Whence comes sin? To the
Atheist the terrible problem has in it no figure of despair. Evil
comes from ignorance, we say; ignorance of physical and of moral
facts. Primarily, from ignorance of physical order; parents who dwell
in filthy, unve