ction,
and expresses the collective feeling of the community as a whole. It
is from such collective action and feeling that justice has been
evolved and not from individual resentment, which is still and always
was something different from justice. The offences punished by the
community have always been considered, so far as they are offences
against morality, to be offences against the gods of the community.
The fact that in course of time such offences come to be punished
always as militating against the good of society testifies merely to
the general assumption that the good of man is the will of God: men do
not believe that murder, adultery, etc., are merely offences {xxiii}
against man's laws. It is only by ignoring this patent fact that it
becomes possible to maintain that religion is built upon morality, and
that we are discovering religion to be a superfluous superstructure.

It may be argued that the assumption that murder, adultery, etc., are
offences against God's will is a mere assumption, and that in making
the assumption we are fleeing "to the bosom of faith." The reply is
that we are content not merely to flee but to rest there . . . 211-238

CHRISTIANITY

If we are to understand the place of Christianity in the evolution of
religion, we must consider the place of religion in the evolution of
humanity; and I must explain the point of view from which I propose to
approach the three ideas of (1) evolution, (2) the evolution of
humanity, (3) the evolution of religion.

I wish to approach the idea of evolution from the proposition that the
individual is both a means by which society attains its end, and an end
for the sake of which society exists. Utilitarianism has familiarised
us with the view that society exists for the sake of the individual and
for the purpose of realising the happiness and good of every
individual: no man is to be treated merely as a chattel, existing
solely as a means whereby his owner, or the governing class, may
benefit. But this aspect of the facts is entirely ignored by the
scientific theory of evolution: according to that theory, the
individual exists only as a factor in the process of evolution, as one
of the means by which, and not as in any sense the end for which, the
process is carried on.

Next, this aspect of the facts is ignored not only by the scientific
theory of evolution, but also by the theory which humanitarianism holds
as to the evolution of humanity,