a conscience must be the end for which such a society is built. If there is no virtue in man which lifts him above the brute struggle for survival, there is no value in him to justify the effort of building a new and more perfect society—and he is not the stuff out of which such a society can be built. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the reverence for personality which is implicit in religion is necessary to establish an adequate motive and an adequate method of social reconstruction. Reverence for personality qualifies the individual’s will to power so that his life can be integrated with other lives with a minimum of conflict; and it saves society from sacrificing the individual to the needs of the group. In the religion of Jesus both a social and an individualistic emphasis issues from a spiritual appreciation of human personality. The individual is given a place and prestige which he never before possessed in society. Western civilization owes much to the high evaluation of the individual which Jesus introduced into the thought of the world. On the other hand this emphasis is saved from mere individualism by an ethic which helps the individual to realize his highest self by sacrificing personal advantages for social values. The contribution of religion to the task of an ethical reconstruction of society is its reverence for human personality and its aid in creating the type of personality which deserves reverence. Men cannot create a society if they do not believe in each other. They cannot believe in each other if they cannot see the potential in the real facts of human nature. And they cannot have the faith which discovers potentialities if they cannot interpret human nature in the light of a universe which is perfecting and not destroying personal values. CHAPTER IV THE SOCIAL CONSERVATISM OF MODERN RELIGION