for Jesus, for the most lovable and loving type that the human mind has ever conceived. [Sidenote: Moral element in the law of God.] Side by side with its somewhat sentimental element the love of God contains a moral element, which is progressively detaching itself with the march of ideas. God being the very principle of goodness, the personification of the moral ideal, the love of God ultimately becomes a moral love properly so called, the love of virtue, of sanctity at its height. The subjective act of charity thus becomes the religious act _par excellence_, in which morality and subjective worship are identified; good works and the externals of worship are simply a translation into the outer world of the moral consciousness. At the same time, in the highest speculations of philosophic theology, charity has been conceived as embracing simultaneously all beings in the divine love, and by consequence as beginning to realize the sort of perfect society in which “all exist in all and all in every part.” The social and moral character of religion thus attains its highest degree of perfection and God appears as a sort of mystic realization of the universal society, _sub specie æterni_. Part Second. THE DISSOLUTION OF RELIGIONS IN EXISTING SOCIETIES. CHAPTER I. DOGMATIC FAITH. I. Narrow dogmatic faith—The credulity of primitive man: First, spontaneous faith in the senses and imagination; Second, faith in the testimony of superior men; Third, faith in the divine word, in revelation, and in the sacred texts—The literalness of dogmatic faith—Inevitable intolerance of narrow dogmatic faith—Belief in dogma, revelation, salvation, and damnation all result in intolerance—Modern tolerance. II. Broad dogmatic faith—Orthodox Protestantism—Dogmas of orthodox Protestantism—Rational consequences of these dogmas—Logical failure of orthodox Protestantism. III. The dissolution of dogmatic faith in modern society—Reasons that render this dissolution inevitable—Comparative influence of the various sciences: influence of public instruction, of means of communication, of industry even and of commerce, etc.—The disappearance of belief in oracles and prophecies—Gradual disappearance of the belief in miracles, in devils, etc. _I. Narrow dogmatic faith._ If faith has not varied especially in and of itself as a mode of feeling, the objects with which it is concerned have differed from generation to generation. Hence the various forms of doctrine which we shall pass in review as showing the evolution and dissolution of faith. * * * * * [Sidenote: Primitive faith more properly a credulity.]