value in religion which is independent of the cosmological considerations which prove or disprove a special religion. No scientific or metaphysical evidence can controvert the fact that man is engaged in an enterprise which comprehends all the actualities and possibilities of life, and that the success of this enterprise is conditioned, in the end, on the compliance of the universe. A summing up of the situation as involving these two factors is morally inevitable. Some solution of the problem, assimilated and enacted, in other words, some form of piety, is no more than the last stage of moral growth.

The value of religious belief, in this generic moral sense, consists in the enlargement of the circle of life. Man knows the best and the worst; he walks in the open, apprehending the world in its full sweep and just proportions. An inclusive view of the universe, whatever it may reveal, throws into relief the lot of man. Religion promulgates the idea of life as a whole, and composes and proportions its activities with reference to their ultimate end. Religion advocates not the virtues in their severalty, but the whole moral enterprise. With this it affiliates all the sundry activities of life, thus bringing both action and thought under the form of service of the ideal. At the same time it offers a supreme object for the passions, which are otherwise divided against

themselves, or vented upon unworthy and fantastical objects. Through being thus economized and guided, these moving energies may be brought to support moral endeavor and bear it with them in their current.

Piety carries with it also that sense of high resolve without which life must be haunted with a sense of ignominy. This is the immediate value of the good-will: the full deliverance of one's self to the cause of goodness. This value is independent of attainment. It is that doing of one's best, which is the least that one can do. Having sped one's action with good-will, one can only leave the outcome to the confluence and summing of like forces. But such service is blessed both in the eventualities and in a present harmony as well. The good of participation in the greatest and most worthy enterprise is proved in its lending fruitfulness, dignity, and momentousness to action; but also in its infusing the individual life with that ardor and tenderness which is called the love of humanity and of God, and which is the only form of happiness that fully measures up to the awakened moral consciousness.

Since religion emphasizes the unity of life and supplies it with meaning and dignity, it is the function of religion to kindle moral enthusiasm in society at large. Religion is responsible for the

prestige of morality. As an institution, it is the appointed guardian and medium of that supreme value which is hidden from the world; of that finality which, in the course of human affairs, is so easily lost to view and so infrequently proved. It is therefore the function of the religious leader to make men lovers, not of the parts, but of the whole of goodness. Embarrassed by their very plenitude of life, men require to have the goodwill that is in them aroused and put in control. This, then, is the work of religion: to strike home to the moral nature itself, and to induce in men a keener and more vivid realization of their latent preference for the higher over the lower values. This office requires for its fulfilment a constructive moral imagination, a power to arouse and direct the contagious emotions, and the use of the means of personality and ritual for the creation of a sweetening and uplifting environment.

In culture and religion human life is brought to the elevation which is proper to it. They are both forms of discipline through which is inculcated that quality of magnanimity and service which is the mark of spiritual maturity. But while culture is essentially contemplative, farseeing, sensitive, and tolerant, religion is more stirring and vital. Both are love of perfection, but culture is admiration; religion, concern.

"Not he that saith Lord, Lord, but he that doeth the will of his Father, shall be saved." In religion the old note of fear is always present. It is a perpetual watchfulness lest the work of life be undone, or lest a chance for the best be forfeited.

NOTES

CHAPTER I

'Joseph Butler: Sermon VII, edited by Gladstone, p. 114. Cf. also Sermon X, on Self-Deceit.

Nietsche: Beyond Good and Evil, translated by Helen Zimmern, p. 174.

• Edmund Burke: A Vindication of Natural Society, Preface, pp. 4, 5. (Boston, 1806.)

The classic discussion of the whole matter is to be found in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, Chapters I-VI, translated by J. E. C. Welldon. Cf. also Fr. Paulsen: System of Ethics, Book II, Chapters I, II, translated by Frank Thilly; G. H. Palmer: The Nature of Goodness, Chapters I, II; and W. James: The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life, in his Will to Believe.

The issue is presented clearly and briefly in Paulsen: Op. cit., Book II, Chapter II, and in James's Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 549–559.

82.

Nietsche: Op. cit., p. 107.

'Huxley: Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays, pp. 81

The first two essays contained in this volume, the Prolegomena, and the Romanes Lecture, contain a very interesting study of the relation of morality to nature.

Huxley: Op. cit., p. 13.

G. K. Chesterton: Napoleon of Notting Hill, p. 291. The whole book is a brilliant satire, intended to show that all of the heroic sentiments and virtues depend on war and local pride.

10 Nietsche: Op. cit., pp. 59, 163, 176, 223, 235, 237, 122. 11 Chesterton: Heretics, and Orthodoxy.

12 Plato: Protagoras, p. 322 (marginal pagination), and passim; translated by Jowett.