ETHICS AND RELIGION. 729 



natural, or under what conditions his moral life began. There are 

 hypotheses or surmises which we may think natural or probable ; 

 but these must, of course, be distinguished from what is known to 

 be fact. Let us begin by defining the principal terms of our in- 

 quiry. Religion is the body of beliefs and practices pertaining to 

 the nature and worship of the Deity, and determining man's effort 

 to propitiate him and secure his aid ; ethics is the body of beliefs 

 and practices regulating the conduct of man to man. True, this 

 distinction seems to be sometimes abandoned : the Deity is said to 

 be pleased by ethically right conduct, or a religious ceremonial 

 comes to be regarded as having an ethical character. But even 

 in these cases the distinction really exists. For, the conduct held 

 to be acceptable to God not only relates to intercourse between 

 human beings, but exists as a social custom before it is approved 

 by religion ; and the religious ceremonial, primarily designed to 

 secure the divine favor, is ethical only in so far as it involves rela- 

 tions among men. This distinction is not affected by the question 

 respecting a divine revelation of truth, for such a revelation might 

 naturally treat duties to God and duties to man as separate sorts 

 of obligation. 



Before, however, entering on the discussion of the subject, it 

 may be proper to ask whether our opinion as to the genesis of 

 ethical practice must be modified by belief in a supernatural, 

 divine revelation of truth. I do not inquire whether such reve- 

 lations have really been given. It is sufficient for our present 

 purpose to ask whether the objective content of the alleged reve- 

 lation is of such character as to take it out of the line of natural 

 human development. How stands the case, for example, with the 

 ethical teaching of the Hindu, Persian, and Arabian sacred books ? 

 The morality of the Koran is in part high and pure, doubtless an 

 advance on the current usage of Mohammed's time. Yet, leaving 

 out of consideration what was borrowed from Jewish and Chris- 

 tian sources, it contains nothing that may not have been the 

 product of human reflection. The social life of the Arabs of that 

 period was comparatively well organized, and Mohammed under- 

 took for the most part only to modify existing customs to restrain, 

 for example, the rights of divorce and retaliation ; and the duties 

 of honesty, justice, kindness, and mercy which he enjoined were 

 such as would naturally suggest themselves to a large-hearted 

 and keen-sighted man anxious to secure the permanence of a new 

 faith and the well-being of his countrymen. The same thing may 

 be said of the moral codes of Zoroaster, the Veda, and Buddha. 

 Of these the last named is the most remarkable so far as regards 

 purity and depth of ethical perception. It has permanent value 

 quite apart from the Buddhist idea of happiness and perfection as 

 consisting in absolute freedom from thought and feeling ; its fun- 



