But how are we to know what _are_ the “best” feelings? What is good? and what is evil? This is decided by “religious perception.” Some such perception exists in every human being; there is always something he approves of, and something he disapproves of. Reason and conscience are always present, active or latent, as long as man lives. Miss Flora Shaw tells that the most degraded cannibal she ever met, drew the line at eating his own mother—nothing would induce him to entertain the thought, his moral sense was revolted by the suggestion. In most societies the “religious perception,” to which they have advanced,—the foremost stage in mankind’s long march towards perfection, which has been discerned,—has been clearly expressed by some one, and more or less consciously accepted as an ideal by the many. But there are transition periods in history when the worn-out formularies of a past age have ceased to satisfy men, or have become so incrusted with superstitions that their original brightness is lost. The “religious perception” that is dawning may not yet have found such expression as to be generally understood, but for all that it exists, and shows itself by compelling men to repudiate beliefs that satisfied their forefathers, the outward and visible signs of which are still endowed and dominant long after their spirit has taken refuge in temples not made with hands. At such times it is difficult for men to understand each other, for the very _words_ needed to express the deepest experiences of men’s consciousness mean different things to different men. So among us to-day, to many minds _faith_ means _credulity_, and _God_ suggests a person of the male sex, father of one only-begotten son, and creator of the universe. This is why Tolstoy’s clear and rational “religious perception,” expressed in the books named on a previous page, is frequently spoken of by people who have not grasped it, as “mysticism.” The narrow materialist is shocked to find that Tolstoy will not confine himself to the “objective” view of life. Encountering in himself that “inner voice” which compels us all to choose between good and evil, Tolstoy refuses to be diverted from a matter which is of immediate and vital importance to him, by discussions as to the derivation of the external manifestations of conscience which biologists are able to detect in remote forms of life. The real mystic, on the other hand, shrinks from Tolstoy’s desire to try all things by the light of reason, to depend on nothing vague, and to accept nothing on authority. The man who does not trust his own reason, fears that life thus squarely faced will prove less worth having than it is when clothed in mist.