or polis, the idea of family relationship remained the characteristic feature of the religion. All the groups, including the polis, were, as Sir G. W. Cox points out, religious societies, and the subordinate fellowships were

religious with an intensity scarcely to us conceivable." In the development which such a system underwent among the early Romans a system hard, cruel, and unpitying, which necessarily led to the treatment of all outsiders as enemies or aliens fit only to be made slaves of or tributaries-we had the necessary religion for the people who eventually made themselves masters of the world, and in whom the military type of society ultimately culminated.

But if it is asked, what the sanction was behind the religious requirements of these social groups "religious with an intensity scarcely to us conceivable," the answer is still the same. There is no qualification. It is still invariably supernatural, using this term in the sense of ultra-rational. The conception of the supernatural has become a higher one than that which prevailed amongst primitive men, and the development in this direction may be distinguished actually in progress, but the belief in this sanction survives in all its force. The religions of ancient Greece and Rome at the period of their highest influence drew their strength everywhere from the belief in the supernatural, and it has to be observed that their decay dated from, and progressed pari passu with, the decay of this belief. The Roman religion which so profoundly influenced the development of Roman civilisation derived its influence throughout its history from the belief in the minds of men that its rules and ordinances had a supernatural origin. Summarising its characteristics Mr. Lecky says: "It gave a kind of official consecration to certain virtues: and commemorated special instances in which they had been displayed; its local character strengthened patriotic feeling, its worship of the dead fostered a vague belief in the immortality of the soul; it sustained the supremacy of the father in the family, surrounded marriage with many imposing ceremonies, and created simple and reverent characters profoundly submissive to an overruling Providence and scrupulously observant of sacred rites."1 A belief in the supernatural was in fact everywhere present, and it constituted the essential element of strength in the Roman religion.

If we turn again to Mohammedanism and Buddhism, forms of belief influencing large numbers of men at the present day outside our own civilisation, we still find these essential features. The same sanction for conduct is always present. The essence of Buddhist morality Mr. Max-Müller states to be a belief in Karma, that is, of work done in this or a former life which must go on producing effects. "We are born as what we deserve to be born; we are paying our penalty or receiving our reward in this life for former acts. This makes the sufferer more patient; for he feels that he is wiping out an old debt; while the happy man knows that he is living on the interest of his capital of good works, and that he must try to lay by more capital for a future life." We have only to look for a moment to see that we have in this the same ultra-rational sanction for conduct. There is and can be no proof of such a theory; on the contrary, it assumes a cause operating in a manner altogether beyond the tests of reason and experience.

societies both anterior to, and contemporaneous with our modern civilisation, and we shall find that all religious beliefs possess these characteristic features. There is no exception. Everywhere these beliefs are associated with conduct, having a social significance"; and everywhere the ultimate sanction which they provide for the conduct which they prescribe is a super-rational one.

Coming at last to the advanced societies of the present day, we are met by a condition of things of great interest. The facts which appeared so confusing in the last chapter now fall into place with striking regularity. The observer remarks at the outset that there exist now, as at other times in the world's history, forms of belief intended to regulate conduct in which a super-rational sanction has no place. But, with no want of respect for the persons who hold these views, he finds himself compelled to immediately place such beliefs on one side. None of them, he notes, has proved itself to be a religion; none of them can so far claim to have influenced and moved large masses of men in the manner of a religion. He can find no exception to this rule. If he desired to accept any one of them as a religion he notes that he would be constrained to do so merely on the ipse dixit of the small group of persons who chose so to describe it.

When we turn, however, to these forms of belief which are unquestionably influencing men in the manner of a religion, we have to mark that they have one pronounced and universal characteristic. The sanction they offer for the conduct they prescribe is unmistakably a super-rational one. We may regard the whole expanse of our modern civilisation and we shall have to note that there is no exception to this rule. Nay, more, we shall have to acknowledge, if we keep our minds free from confusion, that there is no tendency whatever to eliminate the super - rational element from religions. Individuals may lose faith, may withhold belief, and may found parties of their own; but among the religions themselves we shall find no evidence of any kind of movement or law of development in this direction. On the contrary, however these beliefs may differ from each other, or from the religions of the past, they have the one feature in common that they all assert uncompromisingly that the rules of conduct which they enjoin have an ultrarational sanction, and that right and wrong are right and wrong by divine or supernatural enactment outside of, and independent of, any other cause whatever.

This is true of every form of religion that we see influencing men in the world around us, from Buddhism to the Roman Catholic Church and the Salvation Army. The supernatural element in religion, laments Mr. Herbert Spencer, "survives in great strength down to our own day. Religious creeds, established and dissenting, all embody the belief that right and wrong are right and wrong simply in virtue of divine enactment."1 This is so: but not apparently because of some meaningless instinct in man. It is so in virtue of a fundamental law of our social evolution. It is not that men perversely reject the light set before them by that school of ethics which has found its highest expression in Mr. Herbert Spencer's theories. It is simply that the deep-seated instincts of society have a truer scientific basis than our current science.

Finally, if our inquiry so far has led us to correct conclusions, we have the clue to a large class of facts 1 Data of Ethics, p. 50.

which has attracted the notice of many observers, but which has hitherto been without scientific explanation. We see now why it is that, as Mr. Lecky asserts, "all religions which have governed mankind have done

SO

by speaking, as common religious language describes it, to the heart,1" and not to the intellect; or, as an advocate of Christianity has recently put it-A religion makes its way not by argument, or by the rational sanctions which it offers, "but by an appeal to those fundamental spiritual instincts of men to which it supremely corresponds."2 We see also why, despite the apparent tendency to the disintegration of religious belief among the intellectual classes at the present day, those who seek to compromise matters by getting rid of that feature which is the essential element in all religions make no important headway; and why, as a prominent member of one of the churches has recently remarked, the undogmatic sects reap the scantiest harvest, while the dogmatic churches still take the multitude. We are led to perceive how inherently hopeless and misdirected is the effort of those who try to do what Camus and Grégoire attempted to make the authors of the French Revolution do-reorganise Christianity without believing in Christ. A form of belief from which the ultra-rational element has been eliminated is, it would appear, no longer capable of exercising the function of a religion.

Professor Huxley, some time ago, in a severe criticism of the "Religion of Humanity" advocated by the followers of Comte, asserted, in accents which always come naturally to the individual when he looks