Of this attitude towards Right and Wrong there are abundant instances in the Upanishads. The choice of the path does not lie _between_ Good and Bad, as in the _Pilgrim's Progress_, but it lies above and in a region transcending them both. "By the serenity of his thoughts a man blots out _all_ actions, whether good or bad."[42] "He does not distress himself with the thought, Why did I not do what is good? Why did I do what is bad?"[43] All religions indeed, by the very fact of their being religions, have indicated a sphere above morality, to which their followers shall and must aspire. What else is St. Paul's reiterated charge to escape from the dominion of sin and law, into the glorious liberty of the children of God? And in all ages the great mystics--those who stand near the fountain-sources of evolution and emanation--have seen and said the same. Says Spinoza:--"With regard to good and evil, these terms indicate nothing positive in things considered in themselves, nor are they anything else than modes of thought, or notions which we form from _the comparison of one thing with another_. For one and the same thing may at the same time be both good and evil, or indifferent."[44] Here indeed, in these pregnant words, we come upon the very root of the matter. A thing, an action, may be called good or bad in respect to a certain purpose or object; but in itself, No. Wine may be good for the encouragement of sociability, but may be bad for the liver. The Sabbath-day may be pronounced a beneficial institution from some points of view, but not from others. A scrupulous respect for private property may certainly be a help to settled social life; but the practice of thieving--as recommended by Plato--may be very useful to check the lust of private riches. To speak of wine as in its nature good or bad is manifestly absurd; and the same of a pious respect for private property or the Sabbath-day. These things are good under certain conditions or for certain purposes, and bad under other conditions or for other purposes. But of course it belongs and goes with the brute externalising tendency of the mind, to stereotype the actual material thing--which should be only the vehicle of the spirit--and give _it_ a character and a cult as good or bad. The Sabbath ceases to be made for man, and man is made for the Sabbath. Law, Custom, Pharisaism, and Self-righteousness spring up and usurp the sphere of morality, and all the histories of savage and civilised nations, with their endless fetishes and taboos and superstitions and ceremonies, and caste-marks and phylacteries, and petty regulations and proprieties,--including bitter scorn and persecution of those who do not fulfil them,--are but illustrations of this process.