The case is not different with religion. Considered from the standpoint of the drives that have made men pious, piety is by no means an unmixed blessing. For history shows that any desire whatever can receive the baptism of religious sanctity, with all the reinforcement that results therefrom. On the one hand, it is true, we see religion calling men to a life of righteousness; on the other hand, there is no meanness nor narrowness that has not somewhere at some time been a part of religion. For this reason, religion is the most dangerous thing in the world. It can promote either candor or prejudice, either self-will or sweet reasonableness, either ruthlessness or the gentleness of a St. Francis of Assisi. And no single religion can exempt itself from the danger. In this country at the present moment--to take a single case for illustration--there is a species of sincere Christianity that seizes intellectual freedom by the throat in order to choke it; that fans flames of hate; that commits deeds of lawless violence. So impossible is it to find in religion the especial seat of a higher nature! On the other hand, at various points in the history of different faiths, religion has turned critically upon itself, and by reorganizing itself upon unprecedented lines, it has proved that, though we cannot rely upon a higher nature made up of drives that everlastingly repeat themselves, nevertheless we have a capacity for never-ending criticism and reconstruction of ourselves. These facts put the bondage of our capacities into correct perspective. We need not deny that untamed and partly tamed impulses tug at the bit, kick, sometimes run away with us; but they are not our jailers. They make difficulty for us, they wound and scar us, but they have within themselves no coherence, whereas types of coherence within a self make all the difference between freedom and bondage. If anyone insists that human nature is depraved, he should place the seat of depravity in the rational man, or the supposed higher nature that is expressed in religion, morals, customs, government, social organization, and deliberate purposes generally. If we conceive the matter in the terms of evolution, then the problem of our bondage centers in the latest-evolved, not the most ancient, phases of human nature; not in raw impulses taken one by one, but in the elaboration of conduct by thought and purpose; not in what is wildest in us, but in what is most civilized and taken for granted. Must we say, then, that within reason itself there is an irrational lag? If this should prove to be the case, the wisest thing to do would be to make allowance for it and by deliberate policy to counteract it, just as the astronomical observer calculates and counteracts his personal equation. XXI HOW REASON ITSELF BINDS US TO THE IRRATIONAL