The moral progress of the species depends, of course, on the moral progress of the individuals embraced in it. Religion is the sum of those influences which determine the motives of men’s actions into harmony with the Divine perfection and the Divine will. Obedience to these influences constitutes the practice of religion, while the statement of the growth and operation of these influences constitutes the theory of religion, or doctrine.
The Divine Spirit planted in man shows him that which is in harmony with the Divine Mind, and it remains for his free will to conform to it or reject it. This harmony is man’s highest ideal of happiness, and in seeking it, as well as in desiring to flee from dissonance or pain, he but obeys the disposition common to all conscious beings. If, however, he attempts to conform to it, he will find the law of evil present, and frequently obtaining the mastery. If now he be in any degree observing, he will find that the laws of morality and right are the only ones by which human society exists in a condition superior to that of the lower animals, and in which the capacities of man for happiness can approach a state of satisfaction. He may be then said to be “awakened” to the importance of religion. If he carry on the struggle to attain to the high goal presented to his spiritual vision, he will be deeply grieved and humbled at his failures: then he is said to be “convicted.” Under these circumstances the necessity of a deliverance becomes clear, and is willingly accepted in the only way in which it has pleased the Author of all to present it, which has been epitomized by Paul as “the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ.” Thus a life of advanced and ever-advancing moral excellence becomes possible, and the man makes nearer approaches to the “image of God.”
Thus is opened a new era in spiritual development, which we are led to believe leads to an ultimate condition in which the nature inherited from our origin is entirely overcome, and an existence of moral perfection entered on. Thus in the book of Mark the simile occurs: “First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear;” and Solomon says that the development of righteousness “shines more and more unto the perfect day.”
δ. Summary.
If it be true that general development in morality proceeds in spite of the original predominance of evil in the world, through the self-destructive nature of the latter, it is only necessary to examine the reasons why the excellence of the good may have been subject also to progress, and how the remainder of the race may have been influenced thereby.
The development of morality is then probably to be understood in the following sense: Since the Divine Spirit, as the prime force in moral progress, cannot in itself be supposed to have been in any way under the influence of natural laws, its capacities were no doubt as eternal and unerring in the first man as in the last. But the facts and probabilities discussed above point to development of religious sensibility, or capacity to appreciate moral good, or to receive impressions from the source of good.
The evidence of this is supposed to be seen in—First, improvement in man’s views of his duty to his neighbor; and Second, the substitution of spiritual for symbolic religions: in other words, improvement in the capacity for receiving spiritual impressions.
What the primary cause of this supposed development of religious sensibility may have been, is a question we reverently leave untouched. That it is intimately connected in some way with, and in part dependent on, the evolution of the intelligence, appears very probable: for this evolution is seen—First, in a better understanding of the consequences of action, and of good and of evil in many things; and Second, in the production of means for the spread of the special instrumentalities of good. The following may be enumerated as such instrumentalities:
1. Furnishing literary means of record and distribution of the truths of religion, morality and science.
2. Creating and increasing modes of transportation of teachers and literary means of disseminating truth.