uture of indefinite duration.
For the length of the period of dominance of a function has always
been proportional to the capacity of that function for future
development. These can never, so far as we can see, be superseded,
for no rival to them can be discovered. We have found in them the
culmination of the sequence of functions.

We have attempted to show in this lecture that reversal of this
grand sequence has always led to degeneration, or, in higher forms,
far more frequently, to extinction. As we ascend, natural selection
works more, rather than less, unsparingly. And as advance depends
upon conformity to environment, and as the highest forms must be
regarded as therefore most completely conformed, we gain our most
adequate knowledge of environment when we study it as working
especially for these. For these have been from the very beginning
its far-off, chief aim and goal. Viewed from this standpoint,
environment proves to be a host of interacting forces uniting in a
resultant "power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness," and
unselfishness.

Inasmuch as man's rational moral nature, his personality, is the
result of the last and longest step toward and in conformity to
environment, these powers correspond to that which is at the same
time highest, and deepest, and most fundamental in that environment.
This power which makes for righteousness is therefore to be regarded
as personal and spiritual rather than material. It is God immanent
in nature. And it is mainly to this personal and spiritual element
in his environment that man is in the future to more completely
conform. Conformity to this element in man's environment does not so
much result in life as it _is_ life; failure to conform is death.
And the pressure of environment upon man, compelling him to choose
between life through conformity and non-conformity with death, can
be most naturally and adequately explained as the expression of his
will. We know what he requires of us.

Our knowledge of him is very incomplete, but may be valid as far as
it extends. And it would seem to be valid, for it has been tested by
ages of experiment. The results of this grand experiment have been
summed up in man's fundamental religious beliefs. And farther
knowledge will be gained by more complete obedience to the
requirements already known. The evidence, that these fundamental
religious beliefs will persist, is of the same character as that
upon which rests our be