Ah, the dear dead days of 1894. In thinning out my books (anybody want a Latin dictionary, cheap?) I found The Ascent of Man, by Henry Drummond, which, after making the point that the fitness of a species includes the ability of the species to live for others. (And yes, it cites that eminent biologist and and anarchist, Prince Kropotkin.) Drummond was Professor of Natural Science at the College of the Free Church of Scotland, than which it is hard to be more evangelical.


Is there no ground here where all the faiths and all the creeds may meet—nay, no ground for a final faith and a final creed? If all men could see the inner meaning and aspiration of the natural order should we not find at last a universal religion—a religion congruous with the whole past of Man, at one with Nature, and with a working creed which Science could accept ?      

The answer is a simple one: We have it already. There exists a religion which has anticipated all these requirements—a religion which has been before the world these eighteen hundred years, whose congruity with Nature and with Man stands the tests at every point. Up to this time no word has been spoken to reconcile Christianity with Evolution, or Evolution with Christianity. And why? Because the two are one. What is Evolution ? A method of creation. What is its object? To make more perfect living beings. What is Christianity? A method of creation. What is its object? To make more perfect living beings. Through what does Evolution work? Through Love. Through what does Christianity work? Through Love. Evolution and Christianity have the same Author, the same end, the same spirit. There is no rivalry between these processes. Christianity struck into the Evolutionary process with no noise or shock; it upset nothing of all that had been done; it took all the natural foundations precisely as it found them ; it adopted Man's body, mind, and soul at the exact level where Organic Evolution was at work upon them; it carried on the building by slow and gradual modifications; and, through processes governed by rational laws, it put the finishing touches to the Ascent of Man.