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 reënforce 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 reënforced 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, from the beginning we find that offences against the common good are punished, not simply as such, but as misconduct bringing on the community, and not merely on the offender, the wrath of gods or spirits. In other words--Mr. Hobhouse's words, p. 119--"in the evolution of public justice, we find that at the outset the community interferes mainly on what we may call supernatural grounds only with actions which are regarded as endangering its own existence." We may then fairly say that if the community inflicts punishments mainly on supernatural grounds from the time when the evolution of public justice first begins, then morality from its very beginning was reënforced--indeed prompted--by religion. The morality was indeed only the custom of the community; but violation of the custom was from the beginning regarded as a religious offence and was punished on supernatural grounds.