Beyond all doubt the present degree of human culture owes in great part its perfection to the propagation of the Christian system of morals and its ennobling influence, although the great value of this has been impaired, often in the most deplorable manner, by its association with untenable myths and so-called "revelations." How little these last contribute to the perfection of the first, can be seen from the acknowledged historical fact that it is just orthodoxy and the hierarchical system based on it (especially that of the Papacy) that has least of all striven to fulfil the precepts of Christian morality; the more loudly they preach it in theory, the less do they themselves fulfil its commands in practice. It is, moreover, to be borne in mind that another and very considerable portion of our modern culture and morality has been developed quite independently of Christianity, mainly through continual study of the highly-elaborated mental treasures of classical antiquity. The thorough study of Greek and Roman classics has at least contributed much more to it than that of the Christian Church fathers. To this we must now add, in our own century (rightly called the "century of the natural sciences"), the immense advance in the higher culture which we owe to a purified knowledge of nature and to the monistic philosophy founded upon this. That these must also exercise an advancing and ennobling influence cannot be doubted, and has already been shown by many eminent authors (Spencer, Carneri, and others) in the course of the last thirty years.[18] Against this monistic ethic founded on a rational knowledge of nature, it has been objected that it is fitted to undermine existing civilisation, and especially that it encourages the subversive aims of social democracy. This reproach is wholly unjustified. The application of philosophical principles to the practical conditions of life, and in particular to social and political questions, can be made in the most various ways. Political "free-thinking," so called, has nothing whatever to do with the "freedom of thought" of our monistic natural religion. Moreover, I am convinced that the rational morality of monistic religion is in no way contrary to the good and truly valuable elements of the Christian ethic, but is destined in conjunction with these to promote the true progress of humanity in the future.