gances. It must obviously be difficult in the best case to achieve a true self-renunciation by a method which, when misused in the least degree, leads inevitably to an exaggerated self-consciousness, and always must the injunction to surmount self by thinking continually of self seem to common sense a hard and inconsistent saying.

CHAPTER V.

NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL RELIGION.

THE principle common to the religions and morality of all ages and places, so far as we can apprehend the evidence, has been that of self-renunciation-selfsuppression, obligatory or voluntary, for the good of the family and the community in the first instance, and afterwards the rise and expansion of this discipline of self, in ascending moral growth, to selfdenial, self-sacrifice, self-renunciation. Rudimentary or complete, it is that which is the common element in the different systems of religion; that in them which, by a survival of the fittest, has continued to be; that which is the cement of social life where religion is wanting; that, therefore, which is destined probably to be the note of the ultimate system. Very different in this respect has it been with the theological systems of the different religious creeds that have prevailed, and so many of which are extinct :

there has been no agreement between the many and various notions which have been entertained concerning the shapes and doings of the invisible or supernatural; nor was agreement in the least possible, seeing that there was not a common method of inquiry and reasoning by which men might arrive at a common conclusion, nor any common standard by which to measure the value of the different conclusions actually reached. The revelation being of supernatural origin and authority in each case, it was the special gift or privilege of the particular people to whom it was made, the token or seal of its nationality; thus it became the inmost embodiment and strongest expression of national feeling in each case, and at the same time the channel through which the national antipathies and animosities found vent, itself in turn intensifying and strengthening them; and in the end that which theoretically ought to be the bond of peace and union between men of different nations, bringing them into unity of aspiration and life on the common ground of humanity, was an impassable wall of separation between them. It is notorious that there is no more complete dividing barrier between Christian and Moslem at the present day than their different religions, and how deeply the animosities of the different sects of the Christian religion have always separated and continue still to separate them, much

as they have in common beneath differences and little as their differences signify.

In essential meaning religion is the universal basis or cement of society, and that religion the best, therefore, which inspires and holds together the best social system in the most complete harmony of its parts, inspiring the units of it so to do those things which ought to be done, and to leave undone those things which ought not to be done towards one another, as to keep it in the best health-that is to say, most holy.* There are not many religions,

* Not that the social feeling is by any means the whole of that complex of notion and sentiment which people mean by religion. There is plainly also the notion and feeling of a power outside the individual and superior to him, demanding his obedience, and making for a larger end than he can comprehend-a power which he cannot but obey, suffering and failing where he does not, increasing and profiting where he does. This superior power has been variously conceived and named by different people in different ages and places, according to the measures of their intellectual and moral development; however it be named now-whether it be, as Comte maintains, the environment, physical and social, in which each one lives and moves and has his being; or whether it be thought of in the abstract form of the unity of an infinite spirit—it has supplied the pressure from above or without under which the development of social and moral feeling among men has taken place. Obviously, social union was necessary, in the first instance, to bare success in the struggle for existence against the powers without-in the struggle to be; and the inevitable effect of social action is to stimulate social feeling. Improvement of material condition goes along with increased knowledge of the order of nature and intelligent submission thereto-such is wisdom; improvement of social and moral condition, with the increase of social affections and good will among men-such is love. Whatever the theory, then, of the external power, the practical result as regards human

therefore, but there is one religion, differing in degree of development according to the lower or higher type of society-by which is meant, as we understand high and low, the more or less complicated social framework which it has to bind together. In order to effect this excellent unity it is essential to control and regulate, and to combine in collective social action, the self-regarding impulses of the individual, which else would become anti-social and destructive; for it is by virtue of this social nature in man, because he has learnt through the ages to control and utilize in social developments the egoistic forces of the individual, not by suppression of them, but by social combinations and altruistic transformations of their energies, that he has risen so high as he has done above the level of other carnivorous creatures, and is now extirpating, eating, or using them, instead of being extirpated, eaten, or used by them. What, then, is needed essentially in an organ of true religion? Not an anti-social monster of mystic or ascetic fanaticism, with more of the madman than of the saint in him, who nurses the development of an exaggerated behaviour in relation to it is much the same-viz. obey the commandments of the Lord and love Jesus Christ whom He has sent; or, obey the order of nature and feel the solidarity of mankind. It is obvious that, in proportion as the feeling of solidarity has increased, so has the notion of a despotic power inspiring only fear and abject submission been permeated by the feelings and supplanted by the notion of a benevolent power inspiring affection and willing obedience,