Notwithstanding this as a primary fact, the religion of a country has a modifying influence on the rapidity of its progress, and the more fixed a religion--the more certainly it claims perfection, the greater claim it lays to holding the final word; _and the more fully this claim is accepted by the people_, the greater influence will it have, the greater check will it be to the development of any new thought, discovery, invention, or principle that arises in the process of evolution toward a freer atmosphere and a broader understanding of individual liberty and dignity and life. William Kingdon Clifford, F. R. S., in his delightful book on the "Scientific Basis of Morals," says: "It is sometimes said that moral questions have been authoritatively settled by other methods; that we ought to accept this decision, and not to question it by any method of scientific inquiry; and that reason should give way to revelation on such matters. "I hope before I have done to show just cause why we should pronounce on such teaching as this no light _sentence of moral condemnation_: first, because it is our duty to form those beliefs which are to guide our actions by the two scientific modes of inference, and by these alone; and, secondly, because the proposed mode of settling ethical questions by authority is contrary to the very nature of right and wrong. "The worship of a deity who is represented as unfair or unfriendly to any portion of the community is a wrong thing, however great may be the threats and promises by which it is commended. And still worse, the reference of right and wrong to his arbitrary will as a standard, _the diversion of the allegiance of the moral sense from the community to him, is the most insidious and fatal of social diseases_. "_The first principle of natural ethics is the sole and supreme allegiance of conscience to the community_.