3. Another theory of religion, now popular, seeks its explanation not in any bodily condition or stage of growth, nor in any special department of the mental life, but in the social relationships of men. Religion becomes a recognition of social values, "a consciousness of the highest social values,"[134] and is practically to be identified with patriotism, altruism and the vision of the future of society. "To-day," says Leuba, "most men and women derive whatever strength they may have to maintain their integrity and to devote themselves to the public good from their respect and love for their family, their friends, their business associates, and the state, and from their desire for the respect and love of men, much more than from any religious conviction. It is no longer the consciousness of God, but the consciousness of Man that is the power making for righteousness."[135] No metaphysical assumptions need be made by this view of religion except that of the existence of a world of one's fellow-men, a postulate which seems necessary even to a functional psychology. 134: Ames: "Psychology of Religious Experiences," p. viii. 135: "A Psychological Study of Religion," p. 311. However much in harmony with the spirit of the age, the social explanation of religion is one-sided and is inadequate to the depth and massiveness and infinite perspective of religious experience. Religion is a triangle with God, the self and one's brother at its three angles. (_a_) The Social theory of religion gives no adequate recognition of the worth either of the individual or of society. The deepest message of religion is that the soul is worth something to God. Man, in spite of his social obligations, is not made simply for his brother. "We die alone," Pascal says, and there is a sense in which we live alone. As a writer on the psychology of the New Testament says: "The self, according to the New Testament, is not merely a social self developing in a community of other finite selves; it is a divine self realizing its ideal powers of service, and fulfilling its destiny only in a fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ."[136] Unless Humanity is endowed with the attributes of Deity, as it almost seems to be in the Positivist ritual, the estimate of society is also lowered when men are viewed as having relations and obligations only to one another. As James Ward has pointed out, Humanity can only have the significance and sacredness of the individuals from whom it is abstracted, and if these have no permanent or enduring worth, no more has Humanity.[137] 136: M. S. Fletcher: "The Psychology of the New Testament," p. 245. 137: "The Realm of Ends," p. 387.