or the teachings of doubtful revelations, but are the necessary growth and products of human nature, in the course of the evolution of society from rude beginnings to a high civilisation. This gives them a certainty and sanction which could be derived from no other source, and makes them what in fact they have become—almost primary instincts of the natural and normal mind in civilised communities. I proceed, therefore, to endeavour to trace shortly the process by which moral laws have originated and grown up to their present certainty and cogency in the course of evolution. As I have already said, the element of morality is one of the latest to be developed in religious conceptions. The first impressions of savage races reflect the feelings of vague superstitious terror with which they regard unknown phenomena and powers. They are afraid of ghosts and afraid of thunder, long before they rise to a belief in a future state of rewards and punishments, or to the notion of an almighty Being acting by natural laws. In a higher state of development they personify natural powers in gods, who have no more idea of morality than if they were so many parallels of latitude or degrees of longitude; and they invent tribal gods, who are simply great chiefs, bound by no laws, but granting favours when appeased and inflicting injuries when angry. By slow degrees, as civilisation advances, moral ideas are evolved, and the more enlightened minds begin to attribute moral attributes to their deities. Earnest men, prophets, and reformers take up these ideas and preach them to the world, and, if circumstances are favourable and the soil prepared, they take root and become popular convictions, surviving in the struggle for life, and becoming stronger from generation to generation.