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However, to most men at some time, and to some men at most times, these purely biological ends and purposes of life become altogether inadequate. They perceive the door opened to a thousand possibilities higher than this, all demanding to be satisfied. The realization of what for want of a better term we can call spiritual values becomes the true end of life, superposed on and dominating the previous biological values.

When civilizations and societies are organized so that their prime purpose is the pursuit of spiritual values, then life will have passed another critical point in its evolution; as always, what has gone before is necessary as foundation for what is coming, and the biological conditions must be fulfilled before the new and higher edifice can be built; but, as when the mammals superseded the reptiles, so this change of aim will mean the rise of a new type to be the dominant and highest form of life.

This can only come about so far as man consciously attempts to make it come about. His evolution up to the present can be summed up in one sentence—that through his coming to possess reason, life in his person has become self-conscious, and evolution is handed over to him as trustee and director. “Nature” will no longer do the work unaided. Nature—if by that we mean blind and non-conscious forces—has, marvellously, produced man and consciousness; they must carry on the task to new results which she alone can never reach.