SECTION 1 Is this material universe self-sufficient and self-contained, or is not the “other conception,” the true one, viz. “that of a universe lying open to all manner of spiritual influences, permeated through and through with a divine spirit, guided and watched by living minds acting through the medium of law indeed, but with intelligence and love behind the law; a universe by no means self-sufficient or self-contained, but with feelers at every pore groping into another supersensuous order of existence where reigns laws hitherto unimagined by science, but laws as real and as mighty as those by which the material universe is governed?”—SIR OLIVER LODGE, “The Outstanding Controversy between Science and Faith,” _Hibbert Journal_ for October, 1902. To the man of Western civilization, whose environment in youth was a domestic atmosphere of Sabbath-day Christian orthodoxy and week-day religious indifference along with a social atmosphere of commercial individualism and the steady pursuit of sense pleasures, it is no easy task to form a correct judgment regarding the true position of religion and its relative worth in evolution. A study of the subject reveals that not only the more and less civilized races of mankind have each some specialized form of religion, but the non-civilized savage tribes of the earth are similarly endowed. Their worship may be degraded to the last degree, but it holds them in its grasp, and in studying these facts we are compelled to believe that humanity is so constituted that its deepest needs are only to be expressed through and by religion. The various religions of the world must have been essential to evolution, since evolution, as applied to man, signifies the ample, thorough development of every integral part of human nature in each individual. But while recognizing religion as a necessary expression of human nature and a supreme characteristic of man, we have also to realize that its forms are as various as the distinctive differences amongst men, and that changes from time to time inevitably occur for good or evil in every religion. None are stationary, none are perfect. And the spiritual verities which lie at the base of all are constantly overlaid by superstitions, while the external forms harden and grow inoperative for good.