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would venture to deny its ‘‘utility .’ 1 But can the former be 
separated from the latter ? 
The intellectual condition of the majority of individuals is 
always such that an honest, if dim, acceptance of the best 
traditions of Duty and Right known in their community is all 
that can be had. Mr. Mill admits it. A minority will rise 
above that, but tradition, and not always a very good tradition, 
has to sustain and guide the conscience of the gene- 
rality. The more thoughtful and ever-reforming inruwdua'r an^l 
few have the task of elevating the “ public opinion,” commu - 
or tradition, towards external “ reason v ; and thus, as 
Coleridge said, the metaphysics of the present age may become 
the common sense or tradition of the next. One of the greatest 
Scottish writers now living has quaintly expressed the incapacity 
of the multitude as yet for thinking justly and fully on the higher 
subjects, in his odd sentence, -‘there be many millions of people in 
the world — maistly fules of course this meant “ mostly unequal 
to independent thinking.” This is more widely true in philo- 
sophy than in morals ; but Religion touches both morals and 
philosophy, and it seems scarcely intelligible to question its 
“ utility” in either, if in fact it be inseparable from them. At 
least it can be only of the lower Religious traditions that Mr. 
Mill can be supposed to be doubting the “ use ” ; and not the 
“ utility” of truth and righteousness, which every capable 
conscious being must desire for himself. 
As familiar illustrations of the place and Utility of traditional 
Religion and morals in the general conscience of a community, 
Judaism, Christianity, or Paganism might be equally referred 
to. The very definite Religion of the Jews, with its social 
life, and its literature, no doubt was a training for many an 
individual conscience; but, much more than this, it was of the 
highest utility, as it created a better civilization, in the midst of 
which a higher law of Right, the Christian law, came in the 
“ fulness of time.” So the Christianity of the Roman Empire was 
a civilization for the peoples, making possible to many that higher 
life which first became accessible only to the Jew. That new public 
opinion under which Christendom was henceforth formed is not 
denied by us, of course, to have been “ useful ” ; yet it is not to 
be confounded with the personal knowledge and goodness which 
are the essential life of Religion. The civilization of the Chirs- 
tianized nations is the exoteric, the life of sanctity the esoteric 
form of our Religion. 
Something analogous has been found in all ages, as far back 
as history can reach, — as in Egypt, Greece, Persia, and India. A 
superficial tradition for the majority, and a thoughtful life vene- 
rated in some. Mr. Mill entirely fails to use this plain fact, and 
