Thus inextricably intertwined from the moment of their first dim dawning upon the consciousness of nascent Humanity, have been the notion of Deity, the notion of an Unseen World, and the notions of Right and Wrong. In their beginnings theology and ethics were inseparable; in all the vast historic development of religion they have remained inseparable. The grotesque conceptions of primitive men have given place to conceptions framed after wider and deeper experience, but the union of ethics with theology remains undisturbed even in that most refined religious philosophy which ventures no opinion concerning the happiness or misery of a future life, except that the seed sown here will naturally determine the fruit to be gathered hereafter. All the analogies that modern knowledge can bring to bear upon the theory of a future life point to the opinion that the breach of physical continuity is not accompanied by any breach of ethical continuity. Such an opinion relating to matters beyond experience cannot of course be called scientific, but whether it be justifiable or not, my point is that neither in the crude fancies of primitive men nor in the most refined modern philosophy can theology divorce itself from ethics. Take away the ethical significance from our conceptions of the Unseen World and the quasi-human God, and no element of significance remains. All that was vital in theism is gone. [Illustration] VII _Is the Substance of Religion a Phantom, or an Eternal Reality?_ We are now prepared to see what is involved in the Reality of Religion. Speaking historically, it may be said that Religion has always had two sides: on the one side it has consisted of a theory, more or less elaborate, and on the other side it has consisted of a group of sentiments conformable to the theory. Now in all ages and in every form of Religion, the theory has comprised three essential elements: first, belief in Deity, as quasi-human; secondly, belief in an Unseen World in which human beings continue to exist after death; thirdly, recognition of the ethical aspects of human life as related in a special and intimate sense to this Unseen World. These three elements are alike indispensable. If any one of the three be taken away, the remnant cannot properly be called Religion. Is then the subject-matter of Religion something real and substantial, or is it a mere figment of the imagination? Has Religion through all these weary centuries been dealing with an eternal verity, or has it been blindly groping after a phantom? Can that history of the universe which we call the Doctrine of Evolution be made to furnish any lesson that will prove helpful in answering this question? We shall find, I think, that it does furnish such a lesson.