Or the argument may be put thus: We have made great progress in the material province of civilization, in science and art; “can an old religion suffice under these new and improved conditions, a religion which originated at an age when these conditions did not exist? This contradiction is shocking.... Progress in culture demands progress in religion.... We want a more perfect religion, a higher religion” (_Masaryk_, Im Kampf um die Religion, 1904, 29). Note the logic of this demonstration. We no longer light our rooms by the dim light of a small oil lamp, we walk no longer at night through dark narrow lanes, but through brightly illuminated avenues, does it follow from this that it can no longer be true that Christ is the Son of God, nor that He has worked miracles, or founded a Church, and a new religion is therefore necessary? We have made progress in our knowledge of history; we know a good deal of Rome and Carthage, of the civilization of ancient Egypt and of Greece, and of their mutual relations; we have other fashions of life than our fathers had, we build and paint differently—our political life, too, has grown more complicated; does it follow from all this, that it cannot be true that we are created by God, that we must believe a divine revelation, hence a new religion is necessary? Progress and evolution to consist in ever abandoning the old and advancing to new and different views—this is _absurd_. Absurd, in the first place, because it is no _progress_ at all, but a retrogression, a hopeless alternation of forwards and backwards. There can be no progress if I am always withdrawing from my old position; progress is possible only by retaining the basis established and then advancing therefrom. And _evolution_ is not a continuous remodelling and shaping anew, but a continuance in growth. Evolution means that the embryo unfolds, and by retaining and perfecting the old matter gradually becomes a plant; evolution is in the progress from bud to blossom; but not in the changing mass of clouds, swept away to-day by the current wind and replaced to-morrow by other clouds. An absurdity, also, for the reason that it violates all laws of reason, that once there was a revelation of God to be believed, but that this is no longer true.