In his _Problems of Philosophy_ (p. 163) Höffding says: "The test of the perfection of a human society is: to what degree is every person so placed and treated that he is not only a mere means, but also always at the same time an end?" and he points {255} out that "this is Kant's famous dictum, with another motive than that given to it by him." But if it is reasonable to apply this test to society, regarded from the point of view of statics, it is also reasonable to apply it to society regarded dynamically. If it is the proper test for ascertaining what degree of perfection society at any given moment has attained, it is also the proper test for ascertaining what advance, if any, towards perfection has been made by society between any two periods of its growth, any two stages in its evolution. But the moment we admit the possibility of applying a test to the process of evolution and of discovering to what end the process is moving, we are abandoning science and the scientific theory of evolution. Science formally refuses to consider whether there be any end to which the process of evolution is working: "end" is a category which science declines to apply to its subject-matter. In the interests of knowledge it declines to be influenced by any consideration of what the end aimed at by evolution may be, or whether there be any end aimed at at all. It simply notes what does take place, what is, what has been, and to some extent what may be, the sequence of events--not their object or purpose. And the {256} science of religion, being a science, restricts itself in the same way. As therefore science declines to use the category, "end," progress is an idea impossible for science--for progress is movement towards an end, the realisation of a purpose and object. And science declines to consider whether progress is so much as possible. But, so far as the subject-matter of the science of religion is concerned, it is positive (that is to say, it is mere fact of observation) that in religion an end is aimed at, for man everywhere seeks God and communion with Him. What the science of religion declines to do is to pronounce or even to consider whether that end is possible or not, whether it is in any degree achieved or not, whether progress is made or not.