At the same time Morality conquers antagonism because it is the life of fellowship. It begins with the recognition that other men have as much right to live as we have, and we buy our rights precisely by conceding theirs. Its root principle is the recognition of this brotherhood or fellow-membership. And yet it, too, never reaches its goal; it fails in two ways; every man in this world, however perfectly he may achieve mastery of his own nature—and it may be doubted if any man has ever done even that by his own strength—is so conditioned by circumstances that he is never able to make his life a perfect masterpiece of art; and as regards the whole fellowship of which he is a member, and his own relation to it, he can find no absolute rules except the command to reach a state of mind which he cannot reach by his own will. There are no moral laws that are absolute except the law to love one’s neighbour as oneself. All the rest have exceptions somewhere. "Thou shall not kill," was the formula of the old law. But we have altered it into, "Thou shalt do no murder." It is always wrong to murder, because murder is such killing as is wrong. But it is not always wrong to kill. And so we find no principle that can be made entirely binding and universal, except the law to love our neighbour as ourselves. But how are we to do it? Is there any man who seriously thinks that by taking thought he can make himself love somebody else? All of these three then, and the last as emphatically as any, in spite of its comprehending a greater section of human nature, fail to reach their own achievement. In the fourth stage, in Religion, all would find their fulfilment. For the purpose of God, if there be a God, is the principle of unity which the scientist is seeking. The nature of God, if there be a God, is that perfect beauty which would be the culmination of the life of Art. The righteousness of God, if there be a God, is the satisfaction of the moral aspiration. But we are not left so to conjecture what life would be like if we could carry our own spiritual faculties to their own highest development. We are given the express image of the person of God. "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." We shall not indeed have perfect knowledge of the sphere of religion until we have seen how the whole of history and every detail of our lives is, after all, the result and work of creative Love; but while Science and Art and Morality struggle towards their goal and only realise their need for it, God gives Himself as the satisfaction of that need. It is His gift, not our discovery; but we see that in this principle all Time is gathered up, for if the life of Christ is the manifestation of the nature of God, then it is the manifestation of the root-principle of all history.[#]