In the
next chapter, I will endeavour to show what is the purpose of the
Creator in this strange revelation of new intelligent forces
impinging upon our planet. It is this view of the question which
must justify the claim that this movement, so long the subject of
sneers and ridicule, is absolutely the most important development
in the whole history of the human race, so important that, if we
could conceive one single man discovering and publishing it, he
would rank before Christopher Columbus as a discoverer of new
worlds, before Paul as a teacher of new religious truths, and
before Isaac Newton as a student of the laws of the Universe.
Before opening up this subject there is one consideration
which should have due weight, and yet seems continually to be
overlooked. The differences between various sects are a very
small thing as compared to the great eternal duel between
materialism and the spiritual view of the Universe. That is the
real fight. It is a fight in which the Churches championed the
anti-material view, but they have done it so unintelligently, and
have been continually placed in such false positions, that they
have always been losing. Since the days of Hume and Voltaire and
Gibbon the fight has slowly but steadily rolled in favour of the
attack. Then came Darwin, showing with apparent truth, that man
has never fallen but always risen. This cut deep into the
philosophy of orthodoxy, and it is folly to deny it.
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