.

It is true that among the many commandments which the Law sets before
its votaries, there are some--the moral commandments, properly so
called--which do in point of fact, and in defiance of the
philosophical assumption of legalism, appeal to the better nature
of Man. But these are at best an insignificant minority; and their
relative importance will necessarily diminish with the development
into its natural consequences of the root idea of legalism. For
legalism, just so far as it is strong, sincere, and self-confident,
will try to cover the whole of human life. The religion that is
content to do less than this, the religion that acquiesces in the
distinction between what is religious and what is secular, is, as we
shall presently see, a religion in decay. Religion may perhaps be
defined as Man's instinctive effort to bring a central aim into his
life and so provide himself with an authoritative standard of values.
In its highest and purest form, Religion controls Man's life, both as
a whole and in all its essential details, through the central aim or
spiritual ideal which it sets before him and the consequent standard
of values with which it equips him. But legalism is debarred by its
distrust of human nature from trying to control the details of life
through any central aim or ideal; and its assumption that all the
commandments of the Law are of divine origin, and therefore equally
binding upon Man, is obviously incompatible with the conception of
a standard of moral worth. Its attempt to cover the whole of life
must therefore resolve itself into an attempt to control the details
of conduct _in all their detail_; to deal with them, one by one,
bringing each in turn under the operation of an appropriate
commandment, and if necessary deducing from the commandment a special
rule to meet the special case. In other words, besides being told
what he is not to do (in the more strictly moral sphere of conduct),
and what he is to do (in the more strictly ceremonial sphere), Man
must be told, in the fullest detail, how he is to do whatever may
have to be done in the daily round of his life. Such at least is the
aim of legalism. The nets of the Law are woven fine, and flung far
and wide. If there are any acts in a man's life which escape through
their clinging meshes, the force of Nature is to be blamed for this
partial failure, not the zeal of the Doctors of the Law.

It is towards this inverted ideal that the doctrine of