and the philosophers had been intolerant toward the orthodox
because they considered them fools. To Voltaire it naturally seemed
that a man who could believe in the reality of miracles must be what in
French is expressively termed a sot. But henceforth, to the disciple of
Lessing, men of all shade of opinion were but the representatives
and exponents of different phases in the general evolution of human
intelligence, not necessarily to be disliked or despised if they did not
happen to represent the maturest phase.

Religion, therefore, from this point of view, becomes clearly demarcated
from theology. It consists no longer in the mental assent to certain
prescribed formulas, but in the moral obedience to the great rule of
life; the great commandment laid down and illustrated by the Founder
of the Christian religion, and concerning which the profoundest modern
philosophy informs us that the extent to which a society has learned
to conform to it is the test and gauge of the progress in civilization
which that society has achieved. The command "to love one another," to
check the barbarous impulses inherited from the pre-social state, while
giving free play to the beneficent impulses needful for the ultimate
attainment of social equilibrium,--or as Tennyson phrases it, to "move
upward, working out the beast, and letting the ape and tiger die,"--was,
in Lessing's view, the task set before us by religion. The true
religious feeling was thus, in his opinion, what the author of "Ecce
Homo" has finely termed "the enthusiasm of humanity." And we shall find
no better language than that of the writer just mentioned, in which to
describe Lessing's conception of faith:--

"He who, when goodness is impressively put before him, exhibits an
instinctive loyalty to it, starts forward to take its side, trusts
himself to it, such a man has faith, and the root of the matter is
in such a man. He may have habits of vice, but the loyal and faithful
instinct in him will place him above many that practice virtue. He may
be rude in thought and character, but he will unconsciously gravitate
toward what is right. Other virtues can scarcely thrive without a fine
natural organization and a happy training. But the most neglected and
ungifted of men may make a beginning with faith. Other virtues want
civilization, a certain amount of knowledge, a few books; but in
half-brutal countenances faith will light up a glimmer of nobleness.
The savage, who can