This will be easier if they recollect that love and reverence for Jesus, as the personification of the good principle, is in no way connected with the supernatural dogmas and legends which have come down from superstitious ages, and which are seen every day, more and more clearly, to stand in direct contradiction to the real facts and real laws of the universe. He is the bright example of the highest ideal of human virtue, not on account of miracles, but in spite of them; not because he was a transcendental abstraction with attributes altogether outside of human experience or conception; but because he was a man whom other men can love and other men can strive to imitate. The dogmas and miracles may quietly fade out of sight, as so many articles of the Athanasian Creed have already done, like mists before the rising rays of larger knowledge and purer morality, and yet the essence of Christianity will remain, as a worship of the good and beautiful, personified in the brightest example which has been afforded—that of Jesus, the son of the carpenter of Nazareth. CHAPTER XII. CHRISTIANITY AND MORALS. Christianity based on morals—Origin of morality—Traced in Judaism—Originates in evolution—Instance of murder—Freedom of will—Will suspended in certain states of brain—Hypnotism—Mechanical theory—Pre-established harmony—Human and animal conscience—Analysis of will—Explained by polarity—Practical conclusion. The great advantage which Christianity possesses over most other religions is that it is based to a much greater extent on the solid foundation of an elevated morality. The creeds of ancient Egypt, of Buddhism, and of Confucianism contain many excellent moral precepts; and the injunctions to ‘do unto others as you would be done by,’ and to ‘love your neighbour as yourself,’ are to be found long before the Sermon on the Mount. But these religions in the main followed other lines of development, and branched off either into metaphysical conceptions or into formal rites and ceremonies. With the exception of Judaism, of which Christianity is the lineal descendant, no religion has ever to the same extent become to the great mass of its adherents a rule of conduct and an incentive, strengthened by divine sanction, to lead pure and upright lives. This is the sense in which Christianity has always been understood by the vast majority of Christians, and its corruptions have come much more from above than from below; from theologians, priests, and politicians, than from the instincts of the millions; and this it is which enables it to retain such a wonderful vitality even in modern times, when faith in dogmas and miracles has been so greatly weakened. In order to appreciate the solidity of this basis it is necessary to understand the origin of morals, and to see that the fundamental precepts of moral law are not mere chance inventions of a few exceptional minds,