PRIMARY AND ULTIMATE FUNCTIONS OF BELIEF 527 



principles can confer an adequate sanction on individual life 

 only if they are incarnated in an organisation whicli embraces 

 the whole of society in its sphere of action — that supplies 

 the sociological justification of principles which are primarily 

 justified by the satisfaction they afford to individual wants. 

 The primary function of reUgious belief is the satisfaction 

 of the desires of the emotional nature of the individual ; the 

 idtimate function of such beUef is the integration of the social 

 organism ; for only in a society thus integrated can the primary 

 function of religious beUef be adequately fulfilled. 



But what are to be the attributes of this spiritual organisation 

 so essential to social life ? Is it to be an organisation indepen- 

 dent of the civil power or subordinate to it ? We may again 

 quote Schaeffle's definition of the Hmitations of the power of 

 the Church : 



" In the family, in the economic and social activity of society, in science, 

 in art, in the State, everywhere where the human genius is at work, it is 

 incumbent on the Church to give a religious impress and a religious sanc- 

 tion to the feelings, the desires, and the whole spiritual life of society. 

 AU this lies within the sphere of the duties of every Christian Church. 



. . But, beyond this, the Church is as little competent as it is authorised 

 to interfere in secular matters in the manner employed by the secular 

 powers. Her mission is not to serve the State, or to take the sword into 

 her hands." ^ 



It may be objected that the claims which the CathoUc Church 

 puts forth are far more ambitious ; and the Syllabus pubhshed 

 by command of Pius IX. may be brought forward in support of 

 this assertion. The Syllabus, as is well known, is the Hst of a 

 number of doctrines which are condemned as heresy by the 

 Apostolic See, and which Catholics are forbidden to hold. The 

 condemnation of the proposition (No. XIX. on the Hst of the 

 Syllabus) which declares that " it is the office of the civil power 

 to define what are the Church's rights and the limits within 



1 A. Schaeffle, Ban und Leben des sozialen Eorpers, ii. 395. Tubingen, 

 1896. 



