it before they deal with it. But about this matter they betray a most
strange ignorance. They think the task is far simpler than it is. They
seem to look on religion as existing nowhere except in its pure form, in
the form of distinct devotional feeling, or in the conscious assents of
faith; and, these once got rid of, they fancy that life is
de-religionized. But the process thus far is really only begun; indeed,
as far as immediate results go, it is hardly even begun; for it is
really but a very small proportion of religion that exists pure. The
greater part of it has entered into combination with the acts and
feelings of life, thus forming as it were, a kind of amalgam with them,
giving them new properties, a new colour, a new consistence. To
_de-religionize_ life, then, it is not enough to condemn creeds and to
abolish prayers. We must further sublimate the beliefs and feelings,
which prayers and creeds hold pure, out of the lay life around us. Under
this process, even if imperfectly performed, it will soon become clear
that religion in greater or less proportions is lurking everywhere. We
shall see it yielded up even by things in which we should least look for
it--by wit, by humour, by secular ambition, by most forms of vice, and
by our daily light amusements. Much more shall we see it yielded up by
heroism, by purity, by affection, and by love of truth--by all those
things that the positivists most specially praise.

The positivists think, it would seem, that they had but to kill God, and
that his inheritance shall be ours. They strike out accordingly the
theistic beliefs in question, and then turn instantly to life: they sort
its resources, count its treasures, and then say, '_Aim at this, and
this, and this. See how beautiful is holiness; see how rapturous is
pleasure. Surely these are worth seeking for their own sakes, without
any "reward or punishment looming in the future."_' They find, in fact,
the interests and the sentiments of the world's present life--all the