viction and belief. I shall have occasion hereafter to apply this conclusion to other important considerations, and I trust it may be reasonably admitted from what I have here observed. The only reproach, perhaps, to which my treatment of this entire question may fairly be open, is that I have confined my views to men who are favoured alike by nature and by circumstances, and are for that reason so rare, while they interest us so deeply. But I hope to show in the sequel that I am far from overlooking the masses of which society is mainly composed, while I would observe, meanwhile, that it strikes me as unworthy of a noble mind to proceed from any but the loftiest premises, whenever human nature is the subject of inquiry.
If, after these general considerations on religion, and the nature of its influence in human life, I now return to the question whether the State should employ it as a means for reforming the morals of its citizens, it will be granted that the methods adopted by the legislator for the promotion of moral culture are always correspondent with their proposed end, and efficient in their practical working, according as they cherish the internal development of capacities and inclinations. For all moral growth and culture spring solely and immediately from the inner life of the soul, and can only be induced in human nature, and never produced by mere external and artificial contrivances. Now, it is unquestionable, that religion, which is wholly based on ideas, sensations, and internal convictions, affords precisely such a means of disposing and influencing a man's nature from within. We develope the artist by accustoming his eye to dwell on the grand masterpieces of artistic skill; we expand his imagination by a study of the faultlessly beautiful models of antiquity; and in like manner must the process of moral development be effected through the contemplation of loftier moral perfection, in the school of social intercourse,
