opment in the evolution of the moral ideas. At this stage of our
development man is fortified by a sense of human fellowship, and in
practice, as well as in theory, has long since given up the assumption
that he needed superhuman beliefs. He has fully recognized the
independence of morality from superhuman beliefs.

James Mill and J. S. Mill taught the greatest happiness of the greatest
number as the supreme object of action and the basis of morality. And it
was this conception that introduced the new ethical principles of duty
to posterity. This conception is a much nobler one than the religious
interpretation of morality to consist in mainly defining what man's duty
to God is; a morality whose chief selfish inspiration is not the helping
of one's fellowmen but the saving of one's own soul. A secular morality
teaches that what man thinks, says, and does lives after him and
influences for good or ill future generations. This is a higher, nobler,
and greater incentive to righteousness than any life of personal reward
or fear of punishment in a future life. There are today a rapidly
growing number of eminent moral teachers who condemn the clinging to the
belief of personal existence after death as a hindrance to the best life
on earth. Professor J. H. Leuba, in his work, "The Belief in God and
Immortality," concludes that, "These facts and considerations indicate
that the reality of the belief in immortality to civilized nations is
much more limited than is commonly supposed; and that, if we bring into
calculation all the consequences of the belief, and not merely its
gratifying effects, we may even be brought to conclude that its
disappearance from among the most civilized nations would be, on the
whole, a gain."

There are few educated men nowadays who would claim that morality cannot
exist apart from religion. Theists are desperately attempting to
harmonize a primitive theory of things, with a larger knowledge and a
more developed moral sense. Morality is fundamentally the expression of
those conditions under which associated life is found possible and
profitable, and that so far as any quality is declared to be moral its
justification and meaning must be found in that direction. "Our alleged
essential dependence upon transcendental beliefs is belied by the most
common experiences of daily life. Who does not feel the absurdity of the
opinion that the lavish care for a sick child by a mother is given
because of a belie