viz. that it is a process moving
through the three stages of custom, religion, and humanitarianism.
That process is still, as it has long been in the past, far from
complete: {xxiv} the end is not yet. It is an end in which, whenever
and if ever realised on earth, we who are now living shall not live to
partake: we are--on this theory of the evolution of humanity--means,
and solely means, to an end which, when realised, we shall not partake
in. Being an end in which we cannot participate, it is not an end
which can be rationally set up for us to strive to attain. Nor will
the generation, which is ultimately to enjoy it, find much satisfaction
in reflecting that their enjoyment has been purchased at the cost of
others. To treat a minority of individuals as the end for which
humanity is evolved, and the majority as merely means, is a strange
pass for humanitarianism to come to.

Approaching the evolution of religion from the point of view that the
individual must always be regarded both as an end and as a means, we
find that Buddhism denies the individual to be either the one or the
other, for his very existence is an illusion, and an illusion which
must be dispelled, in order that he may cease from an existence which
it is an illusion to imagine that he possesses. If, however, we turn
to other religions less highly developed than Buddhism, we find that,
in all, the existence of the individual as well as of the god of the
community is assumed; that the interests of the community are the will
of the community's god; that the interests of the community are higher
than the interests of the individual, when they appear to differ; and
that the man who prefers the interests of the community to his own is
regarded as the higher type of man. In fine, the individual, from this
point of view, acts voluntarily as the means whereby the end of society
may be realised. And, in so acting, he testifies to his conviction
that he will thereby realise his own end.

Throughout the history of religion these two facts are implied: first,
the existence of the individual as a member of society seeking
communion with God; next, the existence of society as a means of which
the individual is {xxv} the end. Hence two consequences with regard to
evolution: first, evolution may have helped to make us, but we are
helping to make it; next, the end of evolution is not wholly outside
any one of us, but in part is realised in us. And it is just b