But the mere existence of a God, whatever be his nature, can neither invalidate nor establish the ethical principles of prudence, justice, and good-will. Were a God whose existence is proved, to recommend injustice, this would not affect in the slightest degree the moral obligation to be just. Moral revelation stands upon precisely the same footing as revelation in the sphere of theoretical truth: its acceptance can be justified only through its being confirmed by experience or reason. In other words, it is the office of revelation to reveal truth, but not to establish it. In consequence of this fact it may even be necessary that a man should redeem the truth in defiance of what he takes to be the disposition of God. Neither individual conscience nor the moral judgment of mankind can be superseded or modified save through a higher insight which these may {230} themselves be brought to confirm. Whatever a man may think of God, if he continues to live in the midst of his fellows, he places himself within the jurisdiction of the laws which obtain there. Morality is the method of reconciling and fulfilling the interests of beings having the capacity to conduct themselves rationally, and ethics is the formulation of the general principles which underlie this method. The attempt to live rationally--and, humanly speaking, there is no alternative save the total abnegation of life--brings one within the jurisdiction of these principles, precisely as thinking brings one within the jurisdiction of the principles of logic, or as the moving of one's body brings one within the jurisdiction of the principles of mechanics. Religion, then, mediates an enlightenment which it does not of itself originate. In religious belief the truth which is derived from a studious observation of nature and the cumulative experience of life, is heightened and vivified. Like all belief religion is conservative, and rightly so. But in the long run, steadily and inevitably, it responds to every forward step which man is enabled to take through the exercise of his natural cognitive powers. Only so does religion serve its real purpose of benefiting life by expanding its horizon and defining its course.