the old churches with their vast funds, their immense organizations, their heaps of tracts, their legions of missionaries, all employed in calling unbelievers into the fold. The object is to elevate all mankind by appealing to their moral instincts, on the ground of their inherent ability to rise in the scale of being. To make their position clear let me quote the words of the founder of these societies, contained in an article entitled "The Freedom of Ethical Fellowship," in the first number of the _International Journal of Ethics_: It is the aim of the Ethical Societies to extend the area of moral co-operation so as to include a part, at least, of the inner moral life; to unite men of divers opinions and beliefs in the common endeavor to explore the field of duty; to gain clearer perceptions of right and wrong; to study with thoroughgoing zeal the practical problems of social, political, and individual ethics, and to embody the new insight in manners and institutions.... It would be a wrong and a hindrance to the further extension of truth to raise above our opinions the superstructure of a social institution. For institutions in their nature are conservative; they dare not, without imperilling their stability, permit a too frequent inspection or alteration of their foundations.... The subject part of mankind, in most places, might, with Egyptian bondage expect Egyptian darkness, were not the candle of the Lord set up by himself in men's minds, which it is impossible for the breath or power of man wholly to extinguish. It is to this "candle of the Lord set up in men's minds" that we look for illumination. It is in the light which it sheds that we would read the problems of conduct and teach others to read them. We appeal directly to the conscience of the present age, and of the civilized portion of mankind. There remains as a residue a common deposit of moral truth, a common stock of moral judgments, which we may call the common conscience. It is upon this common conscience that we build.... The contents of the common conscience we would clarify and classify, to the end that they may become the conscious possession of all classes; and in order to enrich and enlarge the conscience, the method we would follow is to begin with cases in which the moral judgment is already clear, the moral rule already accepted; and to show that the same rule, the same judgment, applies to other cases, which, because of their greater complexity, are less transparent to the mental eye....