Having these conclusions firmly established in his mind, and the undeserved reverence from early training removed, he becomes especially fitted to examine these old beliefs, and to pass judgment upon them, without that taint of blind devotional fervor which the unremitted teaching of many centuries has rendered current in the world. He observes of these old beliefs, that during their supremacy, when their control of society was complete and unquestioned, the material progress of mankind was least, without any compensating condition to make up for the darkness, and dead mental activity that had fallen upon it; except that apparent hypnotic influence from the doctrines taught, which made men careless of their miseries, and indifferent to the things of the earth. He observes, further, of these old beliefs, that as modern knowledge reduces their hold of authority among men, the world improves as it never did before. Even charity, kindness, and good will to men, adopted, and long taught as an inseparable part of them, multiply more rapidly as their weight in the management of human affairs grow less. From these well attested facts he arrives at the conviction that those religious societies, founded upon, and which have for centuries labored to perpetuate these beliefs, either are not possessed with all the elements of human progress, or, that having many of such elements, they have others of such neutralizing and retarding effect as to render the first futile for such a purpose. That the latter is the case, every year added to his experience of life removes the doubt, and explains to his understanding why the religious societies of the world have failed in any great degree to advance the material and intellectual condition of mankind.