MIND IN EVOLUTION
is its psychological accompaniment, is perhaps the crucial question in the whole wide range of evolutionary advancement. Consider what it means. It means nothing less than the dawn of that freedom of choice which we cherish above all things. It is the very turning point in the evolutionary history of events. In that history it is of all events the greatest in promise. In human life it marks us as what we verily are—makers of a new, and, as we hope, a better world. For human guidance is always toward something more or less clearly envisaged as not yet in being, but still to be brought into being through striving and endeavour. It comes with that higher enjoyment we call joy; it comes with reflective reference. But it comes with that touch of genuine newness which characterizes every step in evolutionary advance.
In social and personal progress guidance becomes more and more and more the expression of human purpose. It is guidance in the light of deliberate and thoughtful reference, with widening range of outlook. It is guidance toward personal joy in right conduct. More than that; it is guidance toward the sympathetic rejoicing in the joy of others which characterizes love and good will. Above all it is guidance in so acting as to promote evolution and to combat dissolution. For regress there is. Our aim should be to fight it in all its forms. Here we have mind at its highest and best in social life.
In close connection with the discussion of evolution a question arises which many of us deem gravely important: What is the bearing of evolution on the religious convictions of the majority of people? Here evolution is generally taken in the unrestricted sense we have accepted. And here we find a noteworthy change of attitude. Three or four decades ago it was widely held that belief in evolution is incompati-
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