CH v.] EELIGION AS ADJUSTMENT, 465 



cannot be rendered non-existent by any ex post facto act of 

 contrition, though its operation may be counteracted. And 

 if the misdeed, as usually happens, has involved others than 

 the agent, its evil consequences must endure and ramify, 

 until they at last disappear through some natural process 

 of equilibration. No amount of repentance for lying can 

 deprive lies of their tendency to weaken the mutual con- 

 fidence of men and thus to dissolve society. The lie once 

 told must work its effects, as surely as the stone dropped 

 into water must give forth its arrested motion in rippling 

 circles. No penance or priestly absolution can do away with 

 the persistence of force. 



Obedience to the so-called " laws of nature," which are the 

 decrees of God, is therefore the fundamental principle of 

 religion viewed practically. And, as was hinted at the close 

 of the twenty-second chapter of Part II., religion, as thus 

 interpreted, has a wider meaning than morality. For, as 

 we saw, in the chapter referred to, that a philosophy of 

 hedonism has for its subject-matter the principles of action 

 conducive to the right living of the individual so far as 

 his own happiness is concerned, and that a philosophy of 

 morality has for its subject-matter the principles of action 

 conducive to the right living of the individual so far as 

 the well-being of the community is concerned ; so a philo- 

 sophy of religion has for its subject-matter the relations of 

 the individual to the Inscrutable Power manifested in the 

 universe, and the principles of action conducive to his right 

 living considered as a part and parcel of the universe. To 

 live in conformity to Nature's decrees, is to live morally, in 

 the common acceptation of that term, and something more 

 beside. For there are many actions which, as immediately 

 concerning none but the individual, are technically neither 

 moral nor immoral, but which nevertheless are right or 

 wrong. Over-eating, for example, which can hardly be 

 termed immoral, and wliich the current hedonism mildly 



VOL. U. H H 



