its Beginning and End--Liberty Triumphed (chapter head)--Abolition of Chattel Slavery--Conclusion. WHAT IS RELIGION? (1899.) I. Belief in God and Sacrifice--Did an Infinite God Create the Children of Men and is he the Governor of the Universe?--II. If this God Exists, how do we Know he is Good?--Should both the Inferior and the Superior thank God for their Condition?--III. The Power that Works for Righteousness--What is this Power?--The Accumulated Experience of the World is a Power Working for Good?--Love the Commencement of the Higher Virtues--IV. What has our Religion Done?--Would Christians have been Worse had they Adopted another Faith?--V. How Can Mankind be Reformed Without Religion?--VI. The Four Corner-stones of my Theory--VII. Matter and Force Eternal--Links in the Chain of Evolution--VIII. Reform--The Gutter as a Nursery--Can we Prevent the Unfit from Filling the World with their Children?--Science must make Woman the Owner and Mistress of Herself--Morality Born of Intelligence--IX. Real Religion and Real Worship. WHY I AM AN AGNOSTIC. I. FOR the most part we inherit our opinions. We are the heirs of habits and mental customs. Our beliefs, like the fashion of our garments, depend on where we were born. We are moulded and fashioned by our surroundings. Environment is a sculptor--a painter. If we had been born in Constantinople, the most of us would have said: "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet." If our parents had lived on the banks of the Ganges, we would have been worshipers of Siva, longing for the heaven of Nirvana. As a rule, children love their parents, believe what they teach, and take great pride in saying that the religion of mother is good enough for them. Most people love peace. They do not like to differ with their neighbors. They like company. They are social. They enjoy traveling on the highway with the multitude. They hate to walk alone. The Scotch are Calvinists because their fathers were. The Irish are Catholics because their fathers were. The English are Episcopalians because their fathers were, and the Americans are divided in a hundred sects because their fathers were. This is the general rule, to which there are many exceptions. Children sometimes are superior to their parents, modify their ideas, change their customs, and arrive at different conclusions. But this is generally so gradual that the departure is scarcely noticed, and those who change usually insist that they are still following the fathers.