Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/473

Rh perplexity is overlaid with successive strata of metaphysical interpretation, and these deposits will go on with growing precision and refinement until a completely congruous account of all the facts is reached. But though it is well to be reminded of the foundations on which we must build, and of the primary data our solutions must satisfy, the truth surely lies ahead of us and not behind us.

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This work is in the main historical, the sources being Waitz, Pfleiderer, Zeller, Réville, and the other well-known writers on the history of religion. The first part deals with those conceptions of the Godhead which in the various religions tend to produce moral conduct; the second investigates the influence of the dogmatic and ritual elements upon moral conduct.

In the nature-religions, morality and religion are not connected. They become fused with the development of civilization. The Egyptian religion introduces the conception of a moral order and righteousness which the gods maintain. A further impulse to morality was given by the elaboration at the hands of the Egyptians of the idea of future life and retribution. Brahmanism makes a systematic application of theology to life, and consequently leaves no place for morality. The Iranian peoples, on the contrary, brought religion into the service of an active morality; theirs was a religion of pure morals, a religion of struggle, of joy in activity; but like all state religions, it suffered from the enthronement of forms and ceremonies. Buddhism contains a deep moral element. In emphasizing the suffering of the world, it brings to the forefront of consciousness the duty of benevolence. Greek religion contributed less to morality than did political life. Besides, the Greeks judged everything from the aesthetic standpoint, the good being the beautiful, and the bad the ugly. Roman religion had a purely practical utilitarian tendency, and consequently contributed little to the growth of pure morality.

Passing now from polytheistic to monotheistic religions, — and Nägelsbach has observed that the search for the one God was the living pulse in the entire religious development of antiquity, — the author finds that among the people of Israel, the relation of morality to religion presents an altogether different aspect. Every moral act is religious, and ought to conform to the righteous and holy will of God. According to Mohammedanism, man derived his entire worth from his