SCIENCE AND MAN. 3G9 



accused to make confession. The evil spirit formerly 

 performed without reward services for which in later 

 times judges and policemen have to be paid.' 



No man ever felt the need of a high and ennobling 

 religion more thoroughly than this powerful and fervid 

 teacher, who, by the way, did not escape the brand of 

 * atheist/ But Fichte asserted emphatically the power 

 and sufficiency of morality in its own sphere. ' Let us 

 consider/ he says, ' the highest which man can possess 

 in the absence of religion I mean pure morality. The 

 moral man obeys the law of duty in his breast abso- 

 lutely, because it is a law unto him; and he does what- 

 ever reveals itself to him as his duty simply because it 

 is duty. Let not the impudent assertion be repeated 

 that such an obedience, without regard for conse- 

 quences, and without desire for consequences, is in itself 

 impossible and opposed to human nature/ So much 

 for Fichte. Faraday was equally distinct. ' I have no 

 intention,' he says, ' of substituting anything for re- 

 ligion, but I wish to take that part of human nature 

 which is independent of it. Morality, philosophy, com- 

 merce, the various institutions and habits of society, are 

 independent of religion and may exist without it.' 

 These were the words of his youth, but they expressed 

 his latest convictions. I would add, that the muse of 

 Tennyson never reached a higher strain than when it 

 embodied the sentiment of duty in ^Enone: 



And, because right is right, to follow right 

 Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence. 



Not in the way assumed by our dogmatic teachers 

 has the morality of human nature been built up. The 

 power which has moulded us thus far has worked with 

 stern tools upon a very rigid stuff. What it has done 

 cannot be so readily undone; and it has endowed us 



