of every world-movement. In fact it must be so. The deepest
instinct in man is his religion, that is, his attitude to eternal
issues; and on that attitude must depend his relation to temporal
things. This is so, largely, even in the case of the individual;
it must therefore be infinitely more so in large bodies or
nations; since every crowd is moved by principles that are the
least common multiple of the principles of the units which
compose it. Of course this is universally recognized now; but it
was not always so. There was a time, particularly at this period
of which I am now speaking, when men attempted to treat Religion
as if it were one department of life, instead of being the whole
foundation of every and all life. To treat it so is, of course,
to proclaim oneself as fundamentally irreligious--and, indeed,
very ignorant and uneducated.

"To resume, however:

"Religion at this period was at a very strange crisis. That it
could possibly be treated in the way I have mentioned shows how
very deeply irreligion had spread. There is no such thing, of
course, really as Irreligion--except by a purely conventional
use of the word: the 'irreligious' man is one who has made up
his mind either that there is no future world, or that it is so
remote, as regards effectivity, as to have no bearing upon
this. And that is a religion--at least it is a dogmatic
creed--as much as any other.

"The causes of this state of affairs I take to have been as follows:

"Religion up to the Reformation had been a matter of authority,