_Lord Fondleton_. How d'ye do, Lady Fritterly? I am sure you will excuse my taking the liberty of introducing Mr Rollestone, a very old friend of mine, to you; he has only just returned to England, after an absence of so many years that he is quite a stranger in London. [Lady Fritterly _is_ "_delighted_." _The rest of the party arrive in rapid succession_. _Mrs Allmash_. Dear Mr Germsell, I was just telling Lady Fritterly what an interesting conversation we were having last night when it was unfortunately interrupted. I shall be so glad if you would explain more fully now what you were telling me. I am sure everybody would be interested. _Lady Fritterly_. Oh do, Mr Germsell; it would be quite too nice of you. And, Mr Drygull, will you ask the Khoja to-- _Mr Drygull_. My friend's name is Ali Seyyid, Lady Fritterly. _Lady Fritterly_. Pray excuse my stupidity, Mr Allyside, and come and sit near me. Lord Fondleton, find Mrs Gloring a chair. _Lord Fondleton_ [_aside to_ Mrs Gloring]. Who's our black friend? _Mrs Gloring_. I am sure I don't know. I think Lady Fritterly called him a codger. _Lord Fondleton_. Ah, he looks like it,--and a rum one at that, as our American cousins say. _Mrs Gloring_. Hush! Mr Germsell is going to begin. _Mr Germsell_. Mrs Allmash asked me last night whether my thoughts had been directed to the topic which is uppermost just now in so many minds in regard to the religion of the future, and I ventured to tell her that it would be found to be contained in the generalised expediency of the past. _Mr Fussle_. Pardon me, but the religion of the future must be the result of an evolutionary process, and I don't see how generalisations of past expediency are to help the evolution of humanity. _Germsell_. They throw light upon it; and the study of the evolutionary process so far teaches us how we may evolve in the future. For instance, you have only got to think of evolution as divided into moral, astronomic, geologic, biologic, psychologic, sociologic, aesthetic, and so forth, and you will find that there is always an evolution of the parts into which it divides itself, and that therefore there is but one evolution going on everywhere after the same manner. The work of science has been not to extend our experience, for that is impossible, but to systematise it; and in that systematisation of it will be found the religion of which we are in search. _Drygull_. May I ask why you deem it impossible that our experience can be extended? _Germsell_. Because it has itself defined its limits. The combined experience of humanity, so far as its earliest records go, has been limited by laws, the nature of which have been ascertained: it is impossible that it should be transcended without violation of the conclusions arrived at by positive science.