pathy are those which are called duties of selfrespect. In all communities in which the distinction of ranks exists, that is, in almost all communities which have advanced beyond the savage state, it is esteemed the duty of men and women so to conduct themselves, as to sustain the dignity and privileges of the order or caste to which they belong. Thus, to admit persons of a proscribed caste or sect, a man of color in America, a Jew in many parts of Europe, to sit at table with us, and much more, habitual association and intermarriage with such persons, - is esteemed in several codes of current morals, a grave offence,* indicating a disposition to sacrifice the feelings and the comfort of those whom we are specially bound to regard, to the gratification of an idle or criminal caprice. The subject of ranks and castes, their origin and the social consequences thence resulting, belongs to the Theory of Politics ; but it was necessary shortly to advert to it here, on account of the great influence thence exercised over every current code of morals, and the numberless inconsistencies and contradictions in current moral opinions thence resulting.

*

Lorqu'au théâtre de la Guadeloupe, nous vîmes toute la salle battre des mains à l'Antony de M. Alexandre Dumas, nous ne pûmes réprimer un mouvement de pitié, en pensant que ceux-là même qui applaudissaient à l'œuvre, se croiraient déshonorés s'ils rencontraient l'auteur dans un salon; et que toutes ces femmes si émues à l'entendre peindre les passions qui les agitent, rougiraient de honte, seulement à la idée de figurer avec lui dans une fête. VICTOR SCHOELCHER, Des Colonies Françaises, ch. 14.

CHAPTER IX.

DUTIES TO GOD, OR RELIGIOUS DUTIES.

1. We have explained, in the first part, how it happens that duties to God hold a place not only in mystic, but also in forensic codes of morals. We have pointed out how there arises in the human mind, even in its most uncultivated state, the idea of invisible, supernatural personal agents, as being the causes of all those natural phenomena so intimately connected with the existence and well-being of man. We have indicated the gradual progress by which the idea, first of a supreme, and afterwards of a single, Deity, is finally arrived at. This single Deity, however, still remains in the minds of the multitude, a personal God, made and modelled after the image of man. Especially is it believed that the will of God may be operated upon by substantially the same means which influence the human will; whence follows the conclusion, that as the phenomena of nature are but the voluntary acts of God, those means which can operate upon God's will may be able to control even nature itself. It is little to be wondered at, that a ́dogma so flattering to the sentiment of self-comparison, so useful to the wise and so comforting to the simple, a dogma which teaches that not only the eternal laws of nature, but the infinite God himself, may be compelled to bend and yield to human incantations, should have been so implicitly received, and so zealously maintained.

It is upon this alleged personal nature of the Deity, that rests the whole superstructure, not only of the mystic theory of morals, but of the political and social importance of the priesthood; and, also, that part of forensic morality, which inculcates what are called religious duties.

2. As men everywhere necessarily frame after their own image the personal deity whom they adore, their ideas of the duties due to God have everywhere substantially depended upon their notions of the duties due to themselves and to each other. We have already seen how all the changes which have taken place in current moral theories have been gradually embodied into current theological dogmas; though from the conservative spirit of all priesthoods, and from the influence of ancient sacred books, theology always lags a good way behind, and experiences a certain difficulty and delay in coming up to the opinions of the times. Hence, in all inquisitive ages, the priesthoods of every sect are divided into two parties, an old school which stickles for the past, a new school which strives to accommodate itself to the present.

*

3. It seems to be at once a characteristic and a cause of stationary civilization, when forms and cer

* This adaptation of popular religious traditions and current scriptures to the moral opinions of the times is what Kant recommended and defended under the name of the method of moral interpretation. Though he was the first to give it a name, and candidly to recognize in it the substitution of new moral meaning in place of the meaning actually intended to be conveyed by the authors of the tradition or the writing, the method itself had been practised from time immemorial, and grows, in fact, out of the necessities of human nature.

emonies usurp the place of, and rise superior to, the very sentiments of which in their origin they were the expressions and the signs. In such states of society, of which history affords us several remarkable instances, ceremonious religions have prevailed; and besides, an infinity of reverences towards his earthly superiors, man has been burdened with a still heavier load of religious formalities. The priesthood, indeed, who put themselves forward as the appointed and necessary mediators between God and man have ever had an interest in multiplying, or at least in upholding these formalities, as making the approach towards God the more difficult, and their services, in consequence, the more necessary. The founders of new religions and new sects have generally satisfied their own reason, and at the same time recommended themselves to favor, by denouncing the greater part of prevailing forms as burdensome and unnecessary, absolving from their observance, and declaring God to be most accessible, if not only accessible, to the unassisted prayers of faithful solitary saints. But in all these new sects, a new priesthood presently arises, who soon become as great sticklers for forms and ceremonies as any of their predecessors.

4. In barbarous warlike nations, God is represented under the image of a bloody tyrant, jealous of his authority to the last degree and implacable in his enmities, to be appeased only by the most abject submission, even the sacrifice by his worshippers of their children or themselves. Through the conservative influences above pointed out, and notwithstanding great changes of manners, such notions, in communi

ties which have become stationary, may continue to survive for an indefinite period. Thus in India, even at the present day, God the destroyer has ten times as many votaries as either God the preserver, or God the creator.

As nations have made a greater progress in civilization, they have given the Deity a milder character. He has been conceived of as a chieftain indulgent to his clansmen, a king beneficent to his subjects, even as a father careful of his children. Yet everywhere the popular mind, in which the sentiment of benevolence has been yet but very imperfectly developed, has dwelt more upon the power than the goodness of God; and the very theologians who have insisted most upon God's infinite benevolence have, in general, insisted still more upon what they call his infinite justice. They cease, indeed, to represent him as demanding the sacrifice of human victims; they claim instead the sacrifice, less bloody but not less dreadful, of man's reason, man's pleasures, even moral sentiment itself; since holding that morality is nothing but obedience to the commands of God, they hold that there is no moral law which the command of God may not dispense with, and set aside. As humanity increases, that mystic-idealism begins to spread, which considers God less as a person, and more as a personification of the sentiment of benevolence; humanity deified. As this idea gains, ground, the rigor of religious duties is greatly relaxed, and the ascetic notion of the sinfulness of pleasure falls into disgrace even with mystic moralists.

5. From the very dawn of science, a controversy,