A church that forces upon all of its members, as a condition of membership, intricate and abstract systems of metaphysics; a church that does not teach good-will toward men, but makes walls of separation out of slight differences of opinion; a church that lags behind the moral sense of the community in which it finds itself; a church that starves the religious life; these, and such as these, must expect to lose adherents. It is not that men reject them; it is that they reject men. Those who read history have no reason to think that men, except here and there and under exceptional circumstances, will cease to regard religious duties as duties. I have not ventured to offer any detailed solution of the problem of loyalty to the church. But neither have I ventured to offer any detailed solution of the problem of loyalty to the state. In the one case, as in the other, I suggest as guides tradition, intuition and reflective reasoning. I can only counsel good sense and some degree of patience. It may be said: You do not solve the difficulty for the individual. I admit it. Such difficulties every thinking man must meet and solve for himself. 169. THE LAST WORD.--Those persons, whether students, or teachers, who dislike this final chapter, may omit it, without detriment to the rest of the book. The doctrine of the Rational Social Will is not founded upon this chapter. The latter is a mere appendix. I regret that, in a work in which I have wished to avoid disputation, I have felt compelled to touch upon religious duties at all. But they have played, and still play, so significant a role in the history of mankind, that the omission could scarcely have been made. You are free to take them or leave them; but you are not free to take or leave the Rational Social Will as the Moral Arbiter of the Destinies of Man. NOTES 1. CHAPTERS I TO III.--The notes in a book of any sort are rarely read, except by a few specialists, and by them not seldom with a view to refuting the author. I shall make the following as brief as I may. But I do wish to give some of my readers--all will not be equally learned--an opportunity to get acquainted with a few books better than this one. This first note is not addressed to the learned, and some will find it superfluous. I intend to mention here a handful of books which any cultivated man may read with profit, and re-read with profit, if he has already read them. They can be collected gradually at a relatively slight expense, and it is a pleasure to have them in one's library. The list may easily be bettered, and may be indefinitely lengthened. I mention only books for those who are accustomed to do their reading in English.