y by those in the
monasteries. How would it have fared if Christianity hadn't come in just
before the migration of peoples.

_Philalethes_. It would really be a most useful inquiry to try and make,
with the coldest impartiality, an unprejudiced, careful and accurate
comparison of the advantages and disadvantages which may be put down to
religion. For that, of course, a much larger knowledge of historical and
psychological data than either of us command would be necessary.
Academies might make it a subject for a prize essay.

_Demopheles_. They'll take good care not to do so.

_Philalethes_. I'm surprised to hear you say that: it's a bad look out
for religion. However, there are academies which, in proposing a subject
for competition, make it a secret condition that the prize is to go to
the man who best interprets their own view. If we could only begin by
getting a statistician to tell us how many crimes are prevented every
year by religious, and how many by other motives, there would be very
few of the former. If a man feels tempted to commit a crime, you may
rely upon it that the first consideration which enters his head is the
penalty appointed for it, and the chances that it will fall upon him:
then comes, as a second consideration, the risk to his reputation. If I
am not mistaken, he will ruminate by the hour on these two impediments,
before he ever takes a thought of religious considerations. If he gets
safely over those two first bulwarks against crime, I think religion
alone will very rarely hold him back from it.

_Demopheles_. I think that it will very often do so, especially when its
influence works through the medium of custom. An atrocious act is at
once felt to be repulsive. What is this but the effect of early
impressions? Think, for instance, how often a man, especially if of
noble birth, will make tremendous sacrifices to perform what he has
promised, motived entirely by the fact that his father has often
earnestly impressed upon him in his childhood that "a man of honor" or
"a gentleman" or a "a cavalier" always keeps his word inviolate.

_Philalethes_. That's no use unless there is a certain inborn
honorableness. You mustn't ascribe to religion what results from innate
goodness of character, by which compassion for the man who would suffer
by his crime keeps a man from committing it. This is the genuine moral
motive, and as such it is independent of all religions.

_Demopheles_. But this is a mo