Hence “not to make man religious,” to quote again the above-mentioned exponent of modern wisdom of life, “but to educate, to promote culture among all classes and professions, this is the task of the present time.” “Religion cannot therefore be the watchword of a progressive humanity; neither the religion of the past nor the religion that is to be looked for in the future, but ethics” (_Jodl_, ibid., 108, 112). Ethics, to be sure, the fundamental principles of which are not the commandments of God, by the keeping of which we are to reach our eternal happiness, but human laws, which are observed for the sake of man. “Morality and religion,” we are told, “shall no longer give us a narrow ladder on which we, each one for himself, climb to the heights of the other world; we are vaulting a majestic dome above this earth under which the generations come and go, succeeding each other in continuous procession.... The day will come when the rays of thought which are now dawning upon the highest and freest mountain-tops will bring the light of noonday down to mankind.” Woe to us, if from these high mountain-tops, where the bare rocks no longer take life and fecundity from the heavens, the sad desert of estrangement from God should extend into the fresh green of the valleys! The central ideas of the humanitarian view of the world appear again, though under different form, among Freemasons and free-thinkers, agitators for free religion and free schools. It is well known that Freemasonry has emblazoned “humanity” upon its standard. “One word of the highest meaning,” so wrote an official authority some years ago, “contains in itself the principle, the purpose, and the whole tenor of Freemasonry, this word is humanity. Humanity is indeed everything to us.” “What is humanity? It is all, and only that, which is human” (Freiburger Ritual, 24. _Pachtler_, Der Goetze der Humanitaet, 1875, 249 f.). “That which is essentially human is the sublime, divine, and the only Christian ideal,” adds another authority, addressing the aspirant to Freemasonry. “Leave behind you in the world your different church-formulas when you enter our temple, but let there always be with you the sense for what is holy in man, the religion which alone makes us happy” (Latomia, 1868, p. 167, _Pachtler_, 248). As early as 1823 the “Zeitschrift fuer Freimauerei” wrote: “We should be accused of idolatry should we personify the idea of humanity in the way in which the Divinity is usually personified. This is indeed our reason for withholding from the eyes of profane persons the humanitarian cult, till the time has come when, from east to west, from noon to midnight, its high ideal will be pondered and its cult propagated everywhere” (_Pachtler_, 255).