Religion, Boutroux urges, must show man that the supreme ideal for him is to realise in his own nature this idea of God. There is an obligation upon man to pursue after these things-goodness, truth, beauty and love—for they are his good, they are the Good; they are, indeed, God. In them is a harmony which satisfies his whole nature, and which does not neglect or crush any aspect of character, as narrow conceptions of religion inevitably do. Boutroux insists upon the necessity for intellectual satisfaction, and opposes the “philosophy of action” in ils doctrine of “faith for faith’s sake.” At the same time he conceives Reason as a harmony, not merely a coldly logical thing. Feeling and will must be satisfied also.[30] [30] Boutroux has in his volume, _Science et Religion dans la Philosophie contemporaine_, contributed a luminous and penetrating discussion of various religious doctrines from Comte to William James. This was published in 1908. We have observed already how Fouillée claimed that the ethics of his _idées-forces_ contained the gist of what was valuable in the world religions. He claims that philosophy includes under the form of rational belief or thought what the religions include as instinctive belief. In religion he sees a spontaneous type of metaphysic, while metaphysic or philosophy is a rationalised religion. Nothing in this connection is more important than a rational and harmonious view of God. This he insists upon in his thesis and in his _Sketch of the Future of a Metaphysic founded on Experience_. The old idea of God was that of a monarch governing the world as a despot governs his subjects. The government of the universe may still be held to be a monarchy, but modern science is careful to assure us that it must be regarded as an absolutely constitutional monarchy. The monarch, if there be one, acts in accordance with the laws and respects the established constitution. Reason obliges us to conceive of the sovereign: experience enlightens us as to the constitution.