stating that, as morality is possible without religion,
religion--or rather we should call it religiosity--is possible without
morality. This is a matter of very great importance, and what has been
asserted will help us to understand the curious phenomena one meets
with in all periods of the world's history--men and women, apparently
of undeniable religious instincts, exhibiting a most imperfect
appreciation of the far more weighty matters concerned with moral
conduct. I am not speaking of downright hypocrites who make religion
merely a cloak for the realisation of rascally designs. I speak rather
of such individuals, who, while betraying a marked religious fervour,
showing itself in assiduous attention at church services,
proselytising, and religious propaganda generally, manifest on the
other hand little or no delicacy or sensitiveness of conscience on
purely ethical matters. Take for example such men as Torquemada and
the inquisitors, or Calvin amongst the Protestants; take the orgies of
sensuality which were the necessary accompaniment of much religious
worship in Pagan times, and, if we may believe travellers, are not
wholly dissociated with popular religion in India and China to-day.
Or, again, take such a case as that of the directors of the Liberator
Building Society, men whose prospectuses, annual reports, and even
announcements of dividends, were saturated with the unction of
religious fervour. Or, take the tradesman who may be a churchwarden or
deacon at his church or chapel, but exhibits no scruples whatever in
employing false weights, and, worst of all, in adulterating human food.
An incalculable amount of this sort of thing goes on, and, whether it
be accurate or not I cannot say, it is often ascribed to small dealers
in small towns and villages, "pillars of the church," as a rule, which
they may happen to attend.

Now, in all these cases there is no need to suppose conscious
hypocrisy. Unconscious, possibly; but, though the heart of man be
inscrutable, we need not necessarily believe that such phenomena are
open evidence of wilful self-deceit. The far truer explanation is,
that religious emotion is one thing and moral emotion quite another.
The late chairman of the Liberator Building Company, I can well
conceive, was a fervent and devoted adherent of his sect, and was not
consciously insincere, when, in paying dividends out of capital, he
ascribed his prosperity to the unique care of a heavenly pr