3) Even if we could set up a wholly secular code of morals, derived
entirely from the exigencies of, tribal, communal, and national life, I
take it that such a code would be inadequate to form the type of
individual character we most admire, and which acts under a sense of
"ought" rather than of "must." The latter is often the mere demand of
gregarious or individual comfort and convenience; the former may be
quite opposed to the inclinations of the individual, and yet bring into
play irksome but ennobling springs of action which a purely secular code
cannot touch.

Now these statements put the case for the theist as moderately and as
well as it can be put, and I think that they are worthy of a little
careful examination. It may be observed that there is no insinuation
that Atheists are actually worse than other people, only the fear that
in the absence of some form of theism the higher ethical motive cannot
be roused, and that therefore character will suffer. Well, we are none
of us free from the contagion of our environment, and the most powerful
influences are often enough those that it would be difficult to specify
in any given instance. It is not only that the influence of the higher
members of society affect the lower. The lower is not without its
influence on the higher. But the question here is not really whether we
are all exposed to the general influence of the group to which we
belong, that, I think, is undeniable, the real question at issue is
whether the determining influence on conduct is theistic or not. And I
think it will be found that while the one thing is asserted it is the
other that is proven.

So far as the first proposition is concerned it may be taken for granted
that our present state is the product of all past evolution, and that in
the course of that evolution theistic beliefs have been closely--not
inextricably--connected with morals. But this is not alone true of
morality, it is true of every branch of human thought and of every
aspect of human life. Art, science, literature, have all been closely
connected with religious beliefs. Necessarily so. Early human history is
spent under the shadow of superstition, and its dominating influence
affects the form of every aspect of life. But as the course of
development has been to separate the essential from the non-essential
and to place most of each department of life on a self-supporting basis,
it would not seem an unreasonable conclusion that et