lly be bared to the light of open day: they are unmoved by
ceremonial observances, and they are predisposed to attach a secondary
importance to the details of public worship. Those whose care it is to
regulate the external forms of religion in a democratic age should pay
a close attention to these natural propensities of the human mind, in
order not unnecessarily to run counter to them. I firmly believe in the
necessity of forms, which fix the human mind in the contemplation of
abstract truths, and stimulate its ardor in the pursuit of them, whilst
they invigorate its powers of retaining them steadfastly. Nor do I
suppose that it is possible to maintain a religion without external
observances; but, on the other hand, I am persuaded that, in the ages
upon which we are entering, it would be peculiarly dangerous to multiply
them beyond measure; and that they ought rather to be limited to as much
as is absolutely necessary to perpetuate the doctrine itself, which is
the substance of religions of which the ritual is only the form. *a
A religion which should become more minute, more peremptory, and more
surcharged with small observances at a time in which men are becoming
more equal, would soon find itself reduced to a band of fanatical
zealots in the midst of an infidel people.

[Footnote a: In all religions there are some ceremonies which are
inherent in the substance of the faith itself, and in these nothing
should, on any account, be changed. This is especially the case with
Roman Catholicism, in which the doctrine and the form are frequently so
closely united as to form one point of belief.]

I anticipate the objection, that as all religions have general and
eternal truths for their object, they cannot thus shape themselves
to the shifting spirit of every age without forfeiting their claim
to certainty in the eyes of mankind. To this I reply again, that the
principal opinions which constitute belief, and which theologians
call articles of faith, must be very carefully distinguished from the
accessories connected with them. Religions are obliged to hold fast to
the former, whatever be the peculiar spirit of the age; but they should
take good care not to bind themselves in the same manner to the
latter at a time when everything is in transition, and when the mind,
accustomed to the moving pageant of human affairs, reluctantly endures
the attempt to fix it to any given point. The fixity of external and
secondary things can