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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



two thousand years of debate have still left it to 

 so many of us. It becomes, at last, the issue of 

 our knowledge, the meaning of our science, the 

 soul of our morality, the ideal of our imagina- 

 tion, the falfillment of our aspirations, the law- 

 giver, in short, of our whole lives. Can it ever 

 be this while we still pursue religion into the 

 babble-world of the whence and the whither ? 



That morality is dependent on theology ; that 

 morality is independent of religion : each of these 

 views presents insuperable difficulties, and 

 brings us to an alternative from which we recoil. 

 To assert that there is no morality but what is 

 based on theology, is to assert what experience, 

 history, and philosophy, flatly contradict — nay, 

 that which revolts the conscience of all manly 

 purpose within us. History teaches us that some 

 of the best types of morality, in men and in 

 races, have been found apart from any thing that 

 Christians can call theology at all. Morality has 

 been advancing for centuries in modern Europe, 

 while theology, at least in authority, has been 

 visibly declining. The morality of Confucius 

 and of Sakya Mouni, of Socrates and Marcus 

 Aurelius, of Vauvenargues, Turgot, Condorcet, 

 Hume, was entirely independent of any theology. 

 The moral system of Aristotle was framed with- 

 out any view to theology, as completely as that 

 of Comte or of our recent moralists. We have 

 experience of men with the loftiest ideal of life 

 and of strict fidelity to their ideal, who expressly 

 repudiate theology, and of many more whom the- 

 ology never touched. Lastly, there is a spirit 

 within us which will not believe that to know and 

 to do the right we must wait until the mysteries 

 of existence and the universe are resolved — its 

 origin, its government, and its future. To make 

 right conduct a corollary of a theological creed, 

 is not only contrary to fact, but shocking to our 

 solf-respect. We know that the just spirit can 

 find the right path, even while the judgment 

 hangs bewildered amid the churches. 



To hold, as would seem to require of us the 

 second argument, that, though theology is neces- 

 sary as a base for morality, yet almost any the- 

 ology will suffice — polytheist, Mussulman, or de- 

 ist — so long as some imaginary being is postu- 

 lated, this is, indeed, to reduce theology to a 

 minimum ; since, in this case, it does not seem to 

 matter in which God you may believe. To say 

 that morality is dependent on one particular the- 

 ology, is to deny that men are moral outside 

 your peculiar orthodoxy ; to say that morality is 

 dependent merely on some form of theology, is to 

 say that it matters little to practical virtue which 



of a hundred creeds you may profess. And 

 when we shrink from the arrogance of the first 

 and the looseness of the second position, we 

 have no alternative but to admit that our morality 

 must have a human, and not a superhuman, base. 



It does not follow that morality can suffice 

 for life without religion. Morality, if we mean 

 by that the science of duty, after all can supply 

 us only with a knowledge of what we should do. 

 Of itself it can neither touch the imagination, 

 nor satisfy the thirst of knowledge, nor order the 

 emotions. It tells us of human duty, but noth- 

 ing of the world without us ; it prescribes to us 

 our duties, but it does not kindle the feelings 

 which are the impulse to duty. Morality has 

 nothing to tell us of a paramount power outside 

 of us, to struggle with which is confusion and 

 annihilation, to work with which is happiness and 

 strength; it has nothing to teach us of a com- 

 munion with a great Goodness, nor docs it touch 

 the chords of veneration, sympathy, and love, 

 within us. Morality does not profess to organize 

 our knowledge and give symmetry to life. It 

 does not deal with beauty, affection, adoration. 

 If it order conduct, it does not correlate this con- 

 duct with the sum of our knowledge, or with the 

 ideals of our imagination, or with the deepest of 

 our emotions. To do all this is the part of reli- 

 gion, not of morality ; and inasmuch as the sphere 

 of this function is both wider and higher, so does 

 religion transcend morality. Morality has to do 

 with conduct, religion with life. The first is the 

 code of a part of human nature, the second gives 

 its harmony to the whole of humaD nature. And 

 morality can no more suffice for life, than a just 

 character would suffice for any one of us without 

 intellect, imagination, or affection, and the power 

 of fusing all these into the unity of a man. 



The lesson, I think, is twofold. On the one 

 hand, morality is independent of theology, is 

 superior to it, is growing while theology is declin- 

 ing, is steadfast while theology is shifting, unites 

 men while theology separates them, and does its 

 work when theology disappears. There is some- 

 thing like a civilized morality, a standard of mo- 

 rality, a convergence about morality. There is 

 no civilized theology, no standard of theology, 

 no convergence about it. On the other hand, 

 morality will never suffice for life ; and every 

 attempt to base our existence on morality alone, 

 or to crown our existence with morality alone, 

 must certainly fail : for this is to fling away the 

 most powerful motives of human nature. To 

 reach these is the privilege of religion alone. 

 And those who trust that the future can ever be 



