few species of animals would have existed. If a man says, "All should stand alone; I can, and those who cannot may as well fall," he forgets the very processes of development by which the race was made and the elements that have gone into its constitution. Let me quote Darwin again. When, he says, "two tribes of primeval man, living in the same country, came into competition, if (other circumstances being equal) the one tribe included a great number of courageous, sympathetic, and faithful members, who were always ready to warn each other of danger, to act and defend each other, this tribe would succeed better and conquer the other." Such a tribe would then in the natural course of things spread and be victorious over others. If it should be itself in turn conquered, it could be only (other things being equal) by some tribe more richly endowed with these same moral and social qualities. And thus, as Darwin remarks, these qualities would tend slowly to advance and be diffused through the world.

Darwinism may thus be looked at in two ways. According to one aspect of it the one most commonly thought of it is likely to act as a disintegrant of humanitarianism. According to the other it may, in my judgment, be a most powerful supporter of humanitarianism. Darwinism itself is consistent with both tendencies.

In a purely individualistic struggle, one set of qualities are important and alone important; in a struggle of communities or societies, still others are needed. In both, the fittest survive, and variations in the direction of greater fitness are preserved and accumulated; but the fittest in the one case may not be the fittest in the other; in the struggle of an individual for himself, a hard and narrow morality may be an advantage; in the struggle of a community, unless the individuals composing it have a morality of a contrasted type, the community will suffer. Which shall one serve, himself or the community? I cannot see that Darwinism gives any light upon

that.

In truth, Darwinism does not, in the last resort, vitally affect our view of ethics one way or the other. It leaves the old problem of human duty, the question of what is the ulti

mate highest good to man, essentially where it was before. It is simple confusion to say that it is on the side of those who would have us give up our sympathetic, humanitarian instincts; and I echo the remark of Mrs. Carlyle that "it is the mixing up of things that is the Great Bad."

Darwin himself said that though civilization keeps alive many whom savages would allow to perish, and some degeneration of the race is thereby caused, we could not, even at the urging of hard reason, check our sympathy without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature.

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Indeed, when we take man and history in a large way, when we realize that individuals, whatever they may say or think about themselves, are always parts of larger wholes, and that the supreme operation of natural selection is upon these wholes, we may say that Darwinism is rather on the side of sympathy, helpfulness, public spirit, and unselfishness. Individuals may momentarily prosper by other qualities; but communities cannot. Communities, where the few socalled superior individuals lead selfish lives and the wants and interests of the many are neglected, are not really strong, nor do they long last. Behold, this was the iniquity of Sodom pride, fullness of bread and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and the needy. And they were haughty and committed abomination before me; therefore I took them away as I saw good" (Ezekiel xvi, 49, 50). It makes little difference whether Israel's God or the dread power of natural selection says this. People who are left to themselves in slums, who are forced to live on starvation wages, do not make good citizens, as is found out when a community which has many of them has to fight for its life. It is inspiring to fight for one's fireside and home; but the aspect of the matter changes when one has no fireside or home worth mentioning. At least when wars are possible, it pays to be sensitive to the wants of the poor, to be just, to be humane, to be even generous, to obliterate the line so far as possible between the different classes in society; it was perhaps with a shrewd thought of this sort that Napoleon once remarked that the idea of equality seemed

to have the sanction of heaven. And even in times of peace, indifference to human wants and needs may be poor policy. Professor Sumner in suggesting the possibility that advancing civilization, instead of raising the victims from the bottom, may crush them out altogether, says that if the slums of the city were turned loose on society, they would very likely be destroyed, either by society or by the strong arm of the law - adding that this is a line of thought never followed by the sentimentalist. Oh, yes, it is, but the sentimentalist (so-called) has a sentiment above the shedding of blood, and he cannot help reflecting on what a lot of energy would be spent in shedding blood that might have been devoted to making the slums impossible.

The peace and welfare of society are served by allowing no slums. To be in a state of unrest and misery is the next thing to destruction, and that is the condition of most societies to-day — owing to the limited amount of sympathy and unselfishness operating in them. Hence, whichever way we turn, Nature and natural selection may be said to favor our higher human qualities, and Darwinism, largely interpreted, is on their side.

THE PRESIDENT. Before listening to Mrs. Spencer and Mr. Cummings, I shall ask you to contribute to evolution that the platform may not do all the work the evolution of the Free Religious Association. While the collection is being taken, let me say that I trust all of you are interested to some extent at least in the work and the principles for which this Association stands. While for some years the Association has simply held its annual Convention, during the last two years we have added to that work each spring a course of lectures, given at the rooms of the Twentieth Century Club.

It

Those lectures have certainly awakened a deep interest. is a kind of work which we wish to continue. We can develop work of this character as we are helped to do it. There are here to-day supplies of slips stating the purposes of the Association, with blank applications for membership. There is a nominal fee of one dollar. I hope that those of you who do not belong to the Association will give your names as members, and give these blanks to your friends, who may be interested to send their names to us, that at any rate by having your names we may have evidence of your interest.

Mrs. Spencer has been connected with this Association very long. During the period when she was minister over the Bell Street Chapel at Providence, whose traditions were so essentially our own, she was frequently with us. We wish that we might welcome her to this platform oftener. She has come over from New York, where she is acting in cooperation with Dr. Adler in his great Ethical Culture Work, to be with us to-day. I present Mrs. Anna Garlin Spencer. [Applause.]

ADDRESS OF MRS. ANNA GARLIN SPENCER, OF NEW YORK CITY

Mr. President and Friends of the Free Religious Associ

ation:

It gives me pleasure to be here, for this platform has been dear to me for years. I do not associate it with this particular hall, but the spirit is capable of moving from one local habitation to another, and so I feel myself quite at home, especially as our dear and revered Colonel Higginson opened this meeting.

The topic of this morning I have translated with considerable breadth, as did the preceding speaker, Mr. Salter, so as to include the practical outcome in moral effort of that contribution of Darwin to religious thought to which our attention

is now directed. Because a contribution to religious thought does not eventuate alone, as we all remind ourselves, in theory and philosophies. It also, if it is vital and real, eventuates in practical changes in actual living. It works itself out in ideals and methods of conduct. And it is in that particular that I, following Mr. Salter's able and illuminating address, would say a very few words at this late hour — as you are to have still another speaker on the special contribution of Darwin to that form of religious thought which worked itself out in a new "plan of salvation."

I like to use the old phrase, although its narrowest construction we have all outgrown. A hundred years ago "the plan of salvation" was to inspire in individuals here and there a holy purpose of life, a strength of persistent effort to realize the ideal presented; and the fate of the whole of humanity was supposed to rest upon the power of that spreading contagion of holy personality.

Now, the first effect of the Darwin contribution to human thought, that contribution before which we bow in reverence to-day, was to disturb the center of gravity in that plan of salvation. It was to transfer the responsibility for the salvation of the individual souls of the race from the personal will to the cosmic order; and in that process the individual choice was seemingly left one side, as an irresponsible and quite dispensable thing. The power of the individual to live a good life under the most discouraging circumstances, that power upon which religion, especially the religion of the Man of Sorrows, had dwelt with such an insistence faded out of sight, and we began to perceive the ethical and spiritual significance of this new conviction of the power of the environment to shape the individual life.

It was at first a discouraging wave that swept over the religious life, because in the spiritual realm we cannot easily transfer sanctions of conduct and appeals to heroic effort from one basis to another. We began to perceive that the area of response to this personal appeal to be holy, no matter what your circumstances might be, was exceedingly limited, — so limited that only the minority could arise and climb to the