Now this theory of the evolution of humanity, and of the place religion takes in that evolution, is in essential harmony with the scientific treatment of the evolution theory, inasmuch as it treats of the individual solely as an instrument to something other than himself, as a means of producing a state of humanity to which he will not belong. But if the assumption that the individual is always a means and never an end in himself be false, then a theory of the evolution of man (as an ethical consciousness) which is based on that wrong assumption will itself be wrong. If each individual is an end, as valuable and as important as any other individual; if each counts for one and not less than any one other,--then his end and his good cannot lie in the perfection of some future generation. In that case, his end would be one that _ex hypothesi_ he could never enjoy, a rest into which he could never enter; {246} and consequently it would be an irrational end, and could not serve as a basis for a rationalist theory of ethics. Man's object (to be a rational object) must have reference to a society of which he may be a member. The realisation of his object, therefore, cannot be referred to a stage of society yet to come, on earth, after he is dead,--a society of which he, whether dead or annihilated, could not be a member. If, then, the individual's object is to be a rational object, as the humanitarian or rationalist assumes, then that end must be one in which he can share; and therefore cannot be in this world. Nor can that end be attained by doing man's will--for man's will may be evil, and regress as well as progress is a fact in the evolution of humanity; its attainment, therefore, must be effected by doing God's will.