Another method of which quietistic religion avails itself in dealing with the world is to assume that its ideal will somehow achieve automatic realization in the intricacies of economic and social life. This method is hardly consistent with its pessimism, but it satisfies the desire for practical results which is bound to assert itself in even the most supra-moral religion. Thus Luther declares:[13] “There can be no better instructions in ... all transactions in temporal goods than that every man who is to deal with his neighbor present to himself these commandments: ‘What you would that others should do unto you, do ye also to them,’ and ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself.’ If these were followed out, then everything would arrange and instruct itself; all things would quietly and simply be set to rights, for everyone’s heart and conscience would guide him.” It is a conceit of religious people, by no means confined to Lutherans, that a vigorous statement of the ideal ought to result in its realization. No one can estimate how often the pulpit has insisted in these latter days that war could be abolished if only the nations “would live according to the law of Christ.” This characteristic frequently gives the church’s pronouncements a curious air of futility; for ideals are neither challenged nor applied if they are not finally embodied in concrete proposals for specific situations. It is in such situations that the ideal meets its real test and runs the peril of corruption. Frequently the tendency of religion to be content with the statement of abstract principles is due to a want of intellectual vigor which results easily from religion’s mistrust of reason.