wrong for which he can get no human redress has
always appealed from man to God, and that the remorse of the wrong-doer
who has evaded human punishment has always taken shape in the fear of
what God may yet do.

Those who desire to prove that at the present day morality can exist
apart from religion, and that in the future it will do so, finding its
basis in humanitarianism and not in religion, are moved to show that as
a matter of historic fact religion and morality have been things apart.
We have examined the assertion that religion in its lowest forms is not
concerned with morality; and we have attempted to show that the god of
a community, or the spirit worshipped by a community, is necessarily a
being conceived as concerned with the interests of the community and as
hostile to those who violate the customs--which is to transgress the
morality--of the community. But even if this be admitted, it may still
be said that it does not in the least disprove the assertion that {222}
morality existed before religion did. The theory we are examining
freely admits that religion is supposed, in certain stages of the
history of humanity, to reenforce morality and to be necessary in the
interest of morals, though eventually it is found that morality needs
no such support; and not only needs now no such support but never did
need it; and the fact that it did not need it is shown by demonstrating
the existence of morality before religion existed. If, then, it be
admitted that religion from the moment it first appeared reenforced
morality, and did not pass through a non-moral period first, still
morality may have existed before religion was evolved, and must have so
existed if morality and religion are things essentially apart. What
evidence then is there on the point? We find Mr. Hobhouse saying (I,
80) that "at almost, if not quite, the lowest stages" of human
development there are "certain actions which are resented as involving
the community as a whole in misfortune and danger. These include,
besides actual treason, conduct which brings upon the people the wrath
of God, or of certain spirits, or which violates some mighty and
mysterious taboo. The actions most frequently regarded in this light
are certain breaches of the marriage law and witchcraft." {223} These
offences, we are told (_ib._, 82), endanger the community itself, and
the punishment is "prompted by the sense of a danger to the whole
community." Here, then, f