ty. However this may be, we may at any rate agree that body
comes UP and spirit comes DOWN, and they consort here together for a few
decades: then the body undoubtedly returns as dust to dust, and "the
spirit returns to God who gave it" (Ecclesiastes). But there would be no
evolution and no fulfilment of purpose if the spirit were not to return
a richer and more developed spirit by reason of its sojourn in the
flesh: there would be stagnation, just a simple ineffectual turning
round and round, as of a screw that had stripped its thread.

The battle royal is the fight for mastery as between body and spirit:
evolution proceeds apace when spirit takes command and bids the body
minister to its progress, but evolution halts when the body clogs the
spirit. Then Nature, our taskmaster, punishes us, ever choosing that way
which is entirely appropriate and induced by the fault itself: this is
the purpose and the cause of our pecks of trouble. The battle has to be
fought--and won--by each of us: the only effect of temporary surrender
is indefinite delay. The battle has still to be fought again with added
difficulties later on. "The popular-class composer nowadays is not
infrequently a thoroughly competent and well-read musician who, _if he
chose_, could write really solid and substantial music."[30] So the
frankly commercial musician who writes for the market has surrendered in
one skirmish of spirit. Very possibly he gains the desired pieces of
silver, but they are dearly paid for at the expense of his own artistic
soul. Also in the long run the surrender is futile, for he MUST evolve:
and if he has slipped down, then so much further has he again to climb.

[Note 30: Article in "John o' London's Weekly."]

The antagonist of Materialism in the world-contest is Spirit, and the
organising and marshalling of the spiritual forces has been the province
of religion in general. But religion has itself been too much apart from
the things of everyday, it has lived in a compartment of its own,
labelled "Sundays only." As a consequence its influence has failed to
permeate the world of affairs, and both religion and the world have
suffered direly as a result. When religion ceases to carry any weight
with the individual, his balance necessarily sways toward the material:
and when religious teaching practically ceases to have any vitality in
the education of the nation, it follows that the outlook must turn more
and more in the direction of s