The codes of morality, then, which are adopted into various religions, and afterward taught as parts of religious systems, are derived from secular sources. The most ancient version of the Ten Commandments, whatever the investigations of scholars may make it out to be, originates, not in the thunders of Sinai, but in the peaceful life of men on the plains of Chaldæa. Conscience is the voice of Man ingrained into our hearts, commanding us to work for Man.
Religions differ in the treatment which they give to this most sacred heirloom of our past history. Sometimes they invert its precepts--telling men to be submissive under oppression because the powers that be are ordained of God; telling them to believe where they have not seen, and to play with falsehood in order that a particular doctrine may prevail, instead of seeking for truth whatever it may be; telling them to betray their country for the sake of their church. But there is one great distinction to which I wish, in conclusion, to call special attention--a distinction between two kinds of religious emotion which bear upon the conduct of men.
We said that conscience is the voice of Man within us, commanding us to work for Man. We do not know this immediately by our own experience; we only know that something within us commands us to work for Man. This fact men have tried to explain; and they have thought, for the most part, that this voice was the voice of a God. But the explanation takes two different forms: the God may speak in us for Man's sake, or for his own sake. If he speaks for his own sake--and this is what generally happens when he has priests who lay claim to a magical character and powers--our allegiance is apt to be taken away from Man, and transferred to the God. When we love our brother for the sake of our brother, we help all men to grow in the right; but when we love our brother for the sake of somebody else, who is very likely to damn our brother, it very soon comes to burning him alive for his soul's health. When men respect human life for the sake of Man, tranquillity, order and progress go hand in hand; but those who only respected human life because God had forbidden murder have set their mark upon Europe in fifteen centuries of blood and fire.