If we maintain a high conception of the moral task and an impartial conception of the actual condition of human life, there remains but one dilemma: either complete hopelessness and inner collapse of life, or the acquisition of further cohesions, such as that offered by an alliance with religion. But religion must then mean more than a sum of doctrines and institutions. It must influence the whole soul. It must not only cling to the past, but must, above all, be a power in the living present. It must not only be a source of comfort to individuals, but must raise the whole of mankind to a higher and purer level. In all these aspects, religion is both action and life, not mere thinking about the world, or subjective emotion. A connection of morality with religion thus understood, can be only a source of profit--not of loss--to morality, which will thus be strengthened in its bearing on external reality, and will experience a great deepening of its inner life.
We must now consider, in conclusion, the position of Morality in our day. Let us see what profit and loss accrues to morality from the present, and what its prospects are for the future. There can be no doubt about the fact that great changes are being effected--changes not only in the world of thought, but in the whole range of life and work. These changes at first result in manifold losses to morality. The pillars which used to support it began to totter, or gave way altogether; new ones arose, but are as yet too weak to offer an adequate substitute for what is lost. We cannot therefore look upon the present status of morality as a satisfactory one.
The weakening of religious conviction and practice is unfavourable to morality. Imperfect as the influence of religion often was on mankind at large, and excessive as was the importance attached to the idea of reward and punishment, men yet recognised a power superior to all human action and all arbitrary human decision. This power was to be an object of reverence; and life was raised above the care for purely material possessions. It was also a gain for moral culture, that religion established the inner solidarity of man, and facilitated mutual understanding. Thus it is a loss for morality, that religion no longer maintains its former ruling position.