Signs of this transfer of religious allegiance are distinctly visible at present. There is the same mixture of credulity and scepticism now that there was in the first century of the Christian era. We, too, have a philosophical class intensely sceptical, but we also have a class of people who are eager votaries of new religions and excessively credulous. The credulity of the many is the consequence of the scepticism of the few, and is the mark of religious change. It now characterizes those whose faith in Christianity is shaken, but in whom religious ideas are as strong as ever. The religious ideas now embodied in Christianity and stamped on the general mass of mankind come under the head of dogmatic supernaturalism; they are most of them concerned with God, personal immortality, heaven, and hell. This dogmatic supernaturalism began with the earliest illusions which created religion thousands of years ago. Since then, with every step of his upward progress, man has been more and more the slave of religious dogma. The higher religions of historical times have multiplied assertions about unknown phenomena; Christianity, the highest of religions, has done so most of all. Having inherited, then, this vast inheritance of belief in supernatural dogma, which began to accumulate in the remotest ages, and has since been enlarged and made sure by the great religion which for fifteen hundred years has been identified with the main civilization of the world, how can men of our own day lightly shake off supernaturalism! A few here and there, as variations from the general type necessarily limited in number, may manage to put it aside after a severe contest with the irrational instincts which they have inherited. But so far as the mass of mankind are concerned, ages must elapse before the work of ages can be undone. Just as in the first century the disbelief of philosophers had discredited the Pagan religions, so now the disbelief of men of thought is discrediting Christianity. And as a certain class of Pagans then turned from the discredited religions to find another basis for their religious ideas, so now a certain class of people are seeking a basis for their religious ideas apparently surer than discredited Christianity. There is a difference of degree between the two periods; Christianity is not yet as much discredited as the Pagan religions were when it attacked them. We have not yet reached the condition of the time when the mysteries were the last props of Paganism, and the importation of foreign religions was one of the recognized industries of Rome. But the seeds of the development of such phenomena are plainly visible. Spiritualism and the Psychical Research Society are the rudiments of Christian mysteries, and certainly attempts on a small scale are being made to import religions into London from Syria and India.