HERBERT SPENCER'S SERVICE TO RELIGION 233 
your friends the Amazulus, Mr. President, this asser- 
tion is found in a rudimentary shape on each of its 
two sides, — the speculative side and the ethical side; 
in such religions as Buddhism or Judaism it is found 
in a highly developed shape on both its sides. But 
the main point is that in all religions you find it in 
some shape or other. Isaid,a moment ago, that mod- 
ern civilized men will all acknowledge that this two- 
sided assertion, in which all religions agree, is of far 
greater importance than any of the superficial points 
in which religions differ. It is really of much more 
concern to us that there is an eternal Power, not our- 
selves, that makes for righteousness, than that such a 
Power is onefold or threefold in its metaphysical na- 
ture, or that we ought not to play cards on Sunday, or 
to eat meat on Friday. No one, I believe, will deny 
so simple and clear a statement as this. But it is not 
only we modern men, who call ourselves enlightened, 
that will agree to this. I doubt not even the narrow- 
minded bigots of days now happily gone by would 
have been made to agree to it if they could have had 
some doggedly persistent Socrates to cross-question 
them. Calvin was willing to burn Servetus for doubt- 
ing the doctrine of the Trinity, but Ido not suppose 
that even Calvin would have argued that the belief in 
God’s threefold nature was more fundamental than 
the belief in His existence and His goodness. The 
philosophical error with him was that he could not 
dissociate the less important doctrine from the more 
important doctrine, and the fate of the latter seemed 
to him wrapped up with the fate of the former. I 
cite this merely as a typical example. What men in 
past times have really valued in their religion has been 
