Dogma, therefore, which serves as a law and visible bond to the Church, is neither the principle nor the foundation of religion. It is not primitive; it never appears until late in the history of religious evolution. "There were poets and orators," says Voltaire, "before there was a grammar and a rhetoric." Man chanted before he reasoned. Everywhere the prophet preceded the rabbi, and religion theology. It may be said, no doubt, that dogma is in religion, since it comes out of it; but it is in it as the fruits of Autumn are in the blossoms of Spring. Dogmas and fruits, in order to form and ripen, need long summers and much sunshine. The best way to describe their nature will be to trace their genesis. 2. _The Genesis of Dogma_ Dogma has its tap-root in religion. In every positive Religion there is an internal and an external element, a soul and a body. The soul is inward piety, the movement of adoration and of prayer, the divine sensibility of the heart; the body consists of external forms, of rites and dogmas, institutions and codes. Life consists in the organic union of these two elements. Without the soul, religion is but an empty form, a mere corpse. Without the body, which is the expression and the instrument of the soul, religion is indiscernible, unconscious, and unrealised. Which of these two elements is primitive and generative? The answer is not doubtful. Modern psychology has learnt it in a manner never to be forgotten from Schleiermacher, Benjamin Constant, and Alexander Vinet. The principle of all religion is in piety, just as the principle of language is in thought, although it is not possible now to conceive of them as being separate. Consider a moment. That religion which time and custom have transformed, perhaps, into a mechanical round of ceremonies, or into a system of abstractions and metaphysical theories, what was it at first? Trace it to its source, and you will find that these cold blocks of lava once came burning hot from an interior fire. But this is the parting of the ways. This is the point at which religious minds separate into widely different groups.