Among primeval men, who obtained their food by hunting out such edible objects as were already in existence, war was universal. The supply of fruit, fish, and game being strictly limited, men were compelled to fight under penalty of starvation. As intelligence advanced and men learned to cultivate useful plants and to domesticate animals, and as they learned further to exchange by barter the products of their labor, a much greater population could live upon a given area. These tribes would be more powerful than their neighbors who still lived by hunting, fishing, and such like, and would flourish at their expense. Through agriculture and commerce men slowly learned that one man’s interest was not necessarily opposed to another’s; they also learned, though it may be ever so feebly, that fighting and plundering one another hindered rather than promoted their welfare. Thus man slowly evolved from a primitive, predatory civilization, in which war was universal and chronic, to the higher industrial civilization, in which war is much less frequent and less universal. Out of this primitive industrial civilization, which has grown more and more complex with the passing years, have come the arts and sciences, which give such added interest and value to modern life. This evolving industrial civilization, by furnishing a wider basis for political union through community of interest instead of mere blood-relationship, has greatly extended the field over which moral obligations are recognized as binding.[22] Social evolution is tending to eradicate more and more, through disuse, the brutish instincts of man; weakening his fighting propensities, his cruelty, his selfishness, his passions; and strengthening, by use, his sympathies, his kindness, his mercy, his sense of justice and honor, and his charity. The goal of social evolution seems to be _men of character_,—men with the widest possible knowledge of the laws of nature, physical, intellectual, and moral; and with the desire and will to rightly obey these laws. Such men will be both loving and lovable characters. In view of this may we not supplement Sir William Hamilton’s aphorism, and say that there is nothing great in mind but character? Since evolution is producing such characters, though it may be seemingly ever so slowly, is it again a shallow philosophy which teaches that there is a designer unfolding these characters? We do not think so. And if there is a designer who has been making towards this goal throughout the infinite sweep of bygone ages, do we not have at least some faint adumbration of knowledge as to the character of this designer? It seems to us that we do. Well may we say, with Matthew Arnold, that there is immanent in the cosmos an eternal soul, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness. This double assertion, that there is a soul in the universe outside of ourselves, and that this soul makes for right conduct, is the basis of fundamental importance in all religions.