organic or inorganic? or in terms of biology, are
they living or dead? But when he is told that the one is living and the
other dead, he is in possession of a characteristic and fundamental
scientific distinction. From this point of view, however much they may
possess in common of material substance and beauty, they are separated
from one another by a wide and unbridged gulf. The classification of
these forms, therefore, depends upon the standpoint, and we should
pronounce them like or unlike, related or unrelated, according as we
judged them from the point of view of Art or of Science.

The drift of these introductory paragraphs must already be apparent. We
propose to inquire whether among men, clothed apparently with a common
beauty of character, there may not yet be distinctions as radical as
between the crystal and the shell; and, further, whether the current
classification of men, based upon Moral Beauty, is wholly satisfactory
either from the standpoint of Science or of Christianity. Here, for
example, are two characters, pure and elevated, adorned with conspicuous
virtues, stirred by lofty impulses, and commanding a spontaneous
admiration from all who look on them--may not this similarity of outward
form be accompanied by a total dissimilarity of inward nature? Is the
external appearance the truest criterion of the ultimate nature? Or, as
in the crystal and the shell, may there not exist distinctions more
profound and basal? The distinctions drawn between men, in short, are
commonly based on the outward appearance of goodness or badness, on the
ground of moral beauty or moral deformity--is this classification
scientific? Or is there a deeper distinction between the Christian and
the not-a-Christian as fundamental as that between the organic and the
inorganic?

There can be little doubt, to begin with, that with the great majority
of people religion is regarded as essentially one with morality. Whole
schools of philosophy have treated the Christian Religion as a question
of beauty, and discussed its place among other systems of ethics. Even
those systems of theology which profess to draw a deeper distinction
have rarely succeeded in establishing it upon any valid basis, or seem
even to have made that distinction perceptible to others. So little,
indeed, has the rationale of the science of religion been understood
that there is still no more unsatisfactory province in theology than
where morality and religion are