We must of course assume that our distinction of higher from lower states of rational development is valid; that we can really attach some absolute meaning to the terms "progress" and "decline;" that there is some vaguely conceived standard of human excellence which such terms refer to. Else we are flung into the very whirlpool of scepticism. Measured back from infinity it may be infinitesimal, but measured forward from zero, the difference of mental and, partly, of moral culture between ourselves and the aborigines of Australia is considerable, and is really to our advantage. Now if a given religion or religious belief suggests itself more readily, or when suggested commends itself more cordially in the measure that men's spiritual needs are more highly developed; if, furthermore, it tends to make men still better and to raise their desires still higher so as to prepare the way for a yet fuller conception of religious truth, it may be said to be adapted to human needs; and it is from such adaptability that we argue its approach to the truth. We say "its approach," for all our ideas of the Whole, of the superhuman, of those beings with which religion deals, are necessarily analogous and imperfect. What is admitted by all with regard to the strict mysteries of the Christian faith is in a great measure to be extended to the central or fundamental ideas of all religion. They are at best woefully inadequate, and if the unity between the parts of an idea be organic and not merely mechanical, they must be regarded as containing false mingled with true.[3] Still some analogies are less imperfect, less mingled with fallacy than others, and there is room for indefinite approximation towards an unattainable exactitude. For example, assuming theism, as we do in the argument under consideration, it is evident that man conceives the superhuman object of his fear and worship more truly as personal than as impersonal; as spiritual than as embodied; as one or few than as many; as infinite than as finite; as creator than as maker; as moral than as non-moral or immoral; as both transcendent and immanent than as either alone. If then it appears that as man's intelligence and morality develop in due proportion, he advances from a material polytheistic immoral conception of the All, to a spiritual and moral monotheism, it may be claimed that the latter is a less inadequate conception. And similarly with regard to other dependent religious beliefs which usually radiate from the central notion. It will be seen that we do not argue from the self-determined wishes or desires of any individual or class of individuals to their possible fulfilment,--to the existence in Nature of some supply answering to that demand; we do not argue that because many men or all men desire to fly, flying must for that reason alone be possible. We speak of the needs of man's nature, not of this individual's nature; of needs consequent on what man is made, and not on what he has made