In spite of its basis in primitive infantile fixations, there can of course be no doubt that religion has performed a work of very great value in the history of human culture. Both in the case of the individual and in that of the race the displacement of the primitive tendencies directed towards members of the family has been, as we have seen, a matter of the greatest importance, but at the same time of the greatest difficulty, in the history of mental and moral development. The provision of a suitable outlet for those parts and aspects of the tendencies in question which could find no adequate object among living human beings was of itself no mean service. The establishment of a moral authority which should stand in the same relation to adult men as parents do to children, thus affording a higher sanction for morality than could otherwise be obtained under primitive conditions; the solidification of the social bond between neighbours and fellow tribesmen, through the consciousness of a common worship and a common parentage from the same divine ancestor; the utilisation of the exaggerated and idealised notions that had been formed concerning the parents in early childhood, to create the concept of a being of more than human virtue, a being who enjoined the nearest possible approach to his own divine perfection on the part of his human followers, thus contributing in no small measure to the raising of the level of morality; the confirmation (through the idealised and sublimated love of the divine parents) of the stage of object-love as contrasted with the lower stage of Narcissism[198]; the stimulation of interest in natural forces, objects and events by endowing them with the strong emotional tone originally connected with the parents; these are some (and only some) of the benefits which humanity has derived from the displacement of the primitive parent-regarding feelings that is involved in religion.