“The new Religion does not discard these precepts.
“Its decalogue, in fact, is longer and more highly developed in parts than the old, but it does not preach its laws, it breathes them and lives by them.
“More than that: it lives by the spirit of good, not by the letter.
“The universal mind, for instance, denounces Theft, yet it recognizes that theft is a multifaced thing, some faces being almost innocent, others hideously cruel. A hundred years ago, a thief had only one face, one head, and one neck, by which he was hanged, if the theft amounted to more than—six-and-eightpence, was it?
“—So, to come to the end of the matter, we have evolved a secular morality that knows no more of creeds, or threats of future punishments, or promises of future bliss than I know of Hindustanee; which lives above all men, yet touches all men; which abhors lust and cruelty and oppression; which teaches the kindness of Christ to men and of Buddha to animals, and before which Atheists and Christians, Jews and Gentiles all bow. A morality which, by the influence of the press, the telegraph, and the steam-engine, those three Apostles, will spread to the uttermost depth of China and to the last temple of that hideous black blot, India; and which, in the course of ages, will change the individual brain of man and raise it ethically far above its present advanced position. No; development has not ceased. Development has only begun. Give the world a thousand years more.”
“A thousand years!”
“I do not want to be unduly optimistical. I foresee set-backs even in the world of universal thought. Give it a thousand years under this new influence, and I foresee Man, individual man, on the heights immeasurably above us.”
“And then?”
“And then—who knows? The world spirit that has reached so many limits, and broken through them to higher things, will reach the limit of perfection in man. If there is a field of perfection beyond, it will break those limits and flow on.”