rality
is the change now taking place in theological beliefs. Heretofore the
church has been by far the most important agency for enforcing
conformity to the accepted moral standard. The hope of reward or fear of
punishment in the world to come has been the chief support upon which
the church has in the past rested its system of social control. But this
other-world sanction is now losing its compelling force in consequence
of the growing disbelief in the old doctrine of rewards and punishments.
The fear of the supernatural, which has its highest development in the
savage, steadily declines with the progress of the race. When the
general level of intelligence is low, the supernatural sanction is a far
more potent means of regulating conduct than any purely temporal
authority. But, just in proportion as society advances, the other-world
sanction loses its potency and increasing reliance must, therefore, be
placed upon purely human agencies.

The immediate effect of this change in our attitude toward the hereafter
and the supernatural has been to remove or at least to weaken an
important restraint upon anti-social tendencies. There is no reason,
however, for apprehension as to the final outcome. Society always
experiences some difficulty, it is true, in making the transition from
the old to the new. In every period of social readjustment old
institutions and beliefs lose their efficacy before the new social
agencies have been perfected. But if the new is higher and better than
the old, the good that will accrue to society will in the long run
greatly outweigh any temporary evil.

But great as has been the change in our point of view with reference to
the church, our attitude toward the state has been even more profoundly
changed. We do not have to go very far back into the past to find
government everywhere controlled by a king and privileged class. The
ascendency of the few was everywhere established by the sword, but it
could not be long maintained by force alone. The ignorance of the masses
was in the past, as it is now, the main reliance of those who wished to
perpetuate minority rule. Fraud and deception have always been an
indispensable means of maintaining class ascendency in government. The
primitive politician no less than his present-day successor saw the
possibility of utilizing the credulity of the masses for the purpose of
furthering his own selfish ends. This explains the long-continued
survival of that int