Koran ; the Chinaman says it is the teaching of Confu- 

 cius; the Indian says it is the doctrine of Buddha; in a 

 word every state raises its religion into the ultimate 

 standard of morality. Very often these religious creeds 

 are directly contradictory to one another, and would 

 seem to exclude the possibility of the very coexistence 

 of nationalities : not the less we see Chinese living 

 peaceably with orthodox Mahometans , Sheahs with 

 Buddhists and Pagans with Christians. Morality, it fol- 

 lows putting oh one side all the various state reli- 

 gions and creeds, all social and family principles 

 must root itself in nature, and only that which answers 

 to the fundamental laws of nature, only that which no 

 philosophy can circumvent can serve and must serve 

 as the foundation of all morality. Let the ascetic say 

 the crucifixion of the flesh is the supreme morality ; the 

 monk that withdrawal from the vanity of the w r orld is 

 its loftiest form ; the world will remain not the less a 

 world of life, of joy, of pleasure, of grief, of pain, of the 

 active exchange of vital elements, and will neither become 

 ascetic nor conventual. 



Fanatics may preach the absolute purity of their own 

 race or of their own religion, they may demand the 

 sacrifice of human lives for the spreading of their ideas, 

 but their fanatical dogmas will not subdue the whole 

 world, and however ferociously they, may slaughter the 

 rebellious and heretical life will take its course, lap them 

 in its waves, and efface the monstrosities of superstition 

 which demand such human holocausts 



Love alone, only the natural love of human attach- 

 ment, founded on the propagation of ones own species, 

 wells up, drowns all the creeds, and successfully resists 

 all the restrictive enactments of human intellect. It 

 unites in peace all principles, it perfects all races, it 

 assimilates all religions, and compels people to live in 

 peace among themselves who hold the most sharply 

 antagonistic and irrecomileable convictions. All this 

 it can do for the simple reason that it is the way, the 



