Excerpt: ...of nature. This is true alike of Christian and Mosaic, of Mohammedan and Indian legends. If now we thus lay aside the whole mass of mystical dogmas and transcendental revelations, there is left behind, as the precious and priceless kernel of true religion, the purified ethic that rests on rational anthropology.18 Among the numerous and varied forms of religion which, in the course of the past ten thousand years and more, have been evolved from the crudest prehistoric beginnings, the foremost rank undoubtedly ...
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Excerpt: ...of nature. This is true alike of Christian and Mosaic, of Mohammedan and Indian legends. If now we thus lay aside the whole mass of mystical dogmas and transcendental revelations, there is left behind, as the precious and priceless kernel of true religion, the purified ethic that rests on rational anthropology.18 Among the numerous and varied forms of religion which, in the course of the past ten thousand years and more, have been evolved from the crudest prehistoric beginnings, the foremost rank undoubtedly belongs to those two forms which still continue to be the most widely accepted among civilised races-the older Buddhism and the younger Christianity. The two have very many features in common, alike in their mythology and in their ethics; indeed, a considerable part of Christianity has come directly from Indian Buddhism, just as another part is drawn from the Mosaic and Platonic systems. But, looked at from the point of view of our present stage of culture, the ethic of Christianity appears to us much more perfect and pure than that of any other religion. We must, it is true, hasten to add that it is exactly the weightiest and noblest principles of Christian ethic-brotherly love, fidelity to duty, love of truth, obedience to law-that are by no means peculiar to the Christian faith as such, but are of much older origin. Comparative psychology proves that these ethical principles were more or less recognised and practised by much older civilised races thousands of years before Christ. Love remains the supreme moral law of rational religion, the love, that is to say, that holds the balance between egoism and altruism, between self-love and love of others. "Do to others as you would they should do to you." This natural and highest command had been taught and followed thousands of years before Christ said: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." In the human family this maxim has always been accepted as self-evident; as ethical instinct it...
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