hat which is given
to us in Christianity into the spiritual and ethical acquisition of a
single personality and its ever more complete representation and
realization in the individual and the common life, the progressing
penetration of generations by the transfiguring light of religion and
morality, and the progressive overcoming of the likewise progressingly
developing kingdom of evil--in short, all that which the language of
religion calls the growth of the kingdom of God, is work and progress
enough, but certainly work and progress on the ground of a certain basis as
the starting-point given to us by God, and work and progress toward a
certain goal set for us by God.

It is only from this basis of a possession of truth as it is offered to us
by Christian theism, and by the facts of redemption and of a reconciliation
of man with God, that the breach between faith and knowledge, between
religion and the life of culture, which at present takes place in so many a
heart and mind, can be healed; and, far from seeking to cripple or hinder
those who stand on this basis, it alone gives to their theoretical and
practical activity its joyous strength and certain end, to {410} their
sphere of knowledge its universal breadth. The Apostle Paul, at the end of
1 Corinthians, XV, when he takes a comprehensive view from the highest
points of Christian hope to which he found himself led from those
fundamentals, knows of no fitter words to conclude with and to give it a
practical application than these: "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, be ye
steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch
as ye know that your labour is not vain in the Lord."

* * * * *

Notes

[1] "The International Scientific Series." No. XIII.

[2] "Evolution of Man."

[3] It was only when the manuscript of this work was nearly finished and
the first part of it had gone to the press, that the author received the
second part of K. E. von Baer's "_Studien aus dem Gebiete der
Naturwissenschaften_" (Studies in the Realm of Natural Sciences). It
contains another essay on teleology, "_Ueber Zielstrebigkeit in den
organischen Koerpern insbesondere_," and a treatise on Darwin's doctrine,
"_Ueber Darwin's Lehre_," which Baer had promised long ago and which the
public had anxiously awaited. It is no little satisfaction to find that I,
from my modest premises, reached results regarding the naturo-philosophical
pr