We will presently state the profounder reasons which prove Kant’s error; but we must first mention another source of pretended ethical commandments. The _religions_ exhibit a remarkable medley of various products of human mystical phantasy and human emotions which have crystallised and formed themselves into legends and dogmas, and these latter have become interwoven with human morals in such a fashion that they seem at first inextricable. The instinct of fear and the lust for power, the hypertrophy of the Ego and the ethical sentiments have here intermingled in a thousand different ways. More especially we may mention the fear of the unknown, of darker powers, and of death; the expansion of the beloved Ego, which becomes idealised in the conception of godhead, and then immortalised; the feelings of sympathy, antipathy and duty towards other individuals, and so forth. The mysterious powers which move the universe are then conceived as anthropomorphic (personal) gods, or as one such God. The next stage is the attribution of godlike qualities to man, which flatters his vanity considerably, and gives him a sense of satisfaction. As a result of this habit of thought, and assisted by the hallucinations of highly imaginative, hysterical, or insane individuals, there have developed the various conceptions of a direct intercourse between the Godhead and man. Hypnotism and psychiatry, in the respective cases of the sane and the insane, teach us how extraordinarily sensitive the human brain is to such impressions. In this way the legendary revelations, according to which God has manifested himself directly and personally to certain individuals, and dictated to them commandments for the guidance of Humanity, have resulted. In this, and in no other way, has come into existence the social tyranny of religious dogmas. Certain men have made God in their own image, and have, in the course of centuries, imposed their own handiwork upon whole nations, mainly by means of the organising ability of their more ambitious successors. Even to-day such prophets frequently arise, both within and without the walls of lunatic asylums. Each one declares that he alone possesses the true revelation. The divine injunctions vary considerably according to the different religions, and are often mutually contradictory. Among them are commandments relating to the Godhead which have nothing to do with natural moral law, and yet are amalgamated with it. Some of these are from the human point of view frankly immoral. Many, on the other hand, represent the precepts of a more or less suitable moral code, which varies according to the personal views of the founder of the religion. The Koran ordains polygamy and forbids the use of wine, while modern Christianity allows the latter and ordains monogamy. Both Moses and Mohammed, however, regard woman as subordinate to man, and as his private property; a view which contradicts a higher and at the same time a more natural moral law.