Romans, who at first maintained their racial vigor by
deliberately ordering the death of weak babes. But times have changed, and
ethics has become very different with passing decades. Our civilization
has resulted in a development of human sympathy as an emotional outgrowth
of necessary altruism; this motive directs us through charitable
institutions and hospitals to prolong countless lives which are more or
less inefficient, but which do not render the whole body politic
incompetent in its struggle for existence.

Nature then has itself attended to the development and institution of
ethics. As we look back over the long series of stages leading to our own
system of conduct the most striking feature of the history is the
increasing power of self-control or inhibition. As a natural instinct this
tends to prevent the committing of acts which for one reason or another
are naturally harmful to society as a whole. What we call conscience is an
instinct implanted by purely natural factors, and it unconsciously turns
the course of human action in the directions of selfish and altruistic
interests. Conscience, then, without ceasing to have validity and
efficiency, appears on the same plane with all of the other products of
evolution which owe their existence to individual or social utility.

Theology and religion involve intimately related conceptions of the world,
its make-up, and its causes. Strictly speaking, religion is a system of
piety and worship, while theology deals more particularly with the
ultimate and supernatural powers conceived in one way or another as the
God and the gods who have constructed the universe and have subsequently
ordered its happenings. A religion is a group of ideas having the effect
of motives; it is dynamic and directs human conduct. Theology, on the
other hand, is more theoretical and descriptive, and its conceptions,
together with those of other departments of human thought, give the
materials for the formulation of the religious beliefs which determine the
attitudes of men toward all of the great universe in which they play their
part and whose mysteries they attempt to solve.

Defined and distinguished in these ways, these two departments of higher
human life present themselves for comparative study and historic
explanation. They differ much among the varied races of mankind, so much,
indeed, that an investigator who approaches their study with a knowledge
only of Christian religion and th