"This fear we believe to be erroneous. It has its origin in the continual confusion of the true, reasonable, nature-religion and the dogmatic, mythological, church-religion. The Comparative History of Religions, an important branch of Anthropology, teaches us the manifold nature of outward form in which different peoples and epochs have, in accordance with their individual character, enveloped religious thought. It shows us that the dogmatic teachings of the church-religion itself are subject to a slow, continuous evolution. New churches and sects arise, old ones disappear; at the best, a particular tenet of faith lasts but a few thousand years, an inconsiderably short space of time compared with the aeons of the geological periods. Finally, the History of Civilization shows us to how small an extent true morality has been associated with any particular ecclesiastical form. The greatest rudeness and barbarity of custom often goes hand in hand with the absolute dominion of an all-powerful church; in confirmation of which assertion one need only remember the Middle Ages. On the other hand, we behold the highest standard of perfection attained by men who have severed connection with every creed. "Independent of every confession of faith, there lives in the breast of every human being the germ of a pure nature-religion; this is indissolubly bound up with the noblest sides of human life. Its highest commandment is love, the restraint of our natural egoism for the benefit of our fellow-men, and for the good of human society whose members we are. This natural law of morality is much older than all church-religion. It has developed out of the social instincts of the animals. We meet with its rudiments among all animals, especially among all mammals. Following the laws of association and of division of labor, many individuals of such species unite to form the higher community of the swarm, herd, or tribe. The existence of the latter is necessarily dependent upon the mutual relations of the members of the community and the sacrifices which these make to the whole society at the cost of their own egoism. The consciousness of this necessity of self-sacrifice, the sense of duty, is nothing else than a social instinct. But this instinct is always a psychical habit, which was originally acquired, but which, becoming in the course of time hereditary, appears at last as innate.