The true cause of this twofold attempt is the incredulity and the scepticism which prevail with regard to religion. Non-Christians are numerous; few Deists are quite sure of their belief and of its efficacy. {54} A necessity for morality is felt to exist; its right to regulate the actions of man is acknowledged; it is in order to preserve to it its integrity and its force that efforts are made to separate it from religion, from all religious creeds, all of which, it is here assumed, are either ruined or tottering. Thus, Independent Morality is, as it were, a raft, offered to the human soul, and to human society, to save their time-worn vessel from being wrecked. The idea is false, the attempt of evil consequence. They who flatter themselves that they can leave Christian morality standing, after wrenching it from Christian dogmas,--and they who believe it possible to preserve morality, after detaching it from religion,--err alike, for they fail to recognise the essential facts of human nature and of human society. Both doctrines are derived from an inexact and incomplete observation of these facts. I have already stated in these Meditations what I think of the isolation of Christian morality from Christianity, and the reason why I reject it. {55} At present I apply myself to the idea of independent morality, and in the name of a psychology, pure at once and severe, I affirm that there exists an intimate, legitimate, and necessary union between morality and religion. A preliminary observation occurs to me. Those who adopt the theory of an independent morality, start from the idea that there is a moral law, strange to and superior to all interested motives, to all selfish passions; these rank duty above, and treat it as independent of, every other motive of action.