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CONTENTS.
page ples of Morality are wholly independent of Religion, and the efficiency of all Religion rests entirely on the peculiar disposition of the individual; so that what operates on Morality is not the sum of the dogmas of Religious systems, but the form of their internal acceptation.—Application of these considerations to the present Inquiry, and examination of the question, whether the State should make use of Religion as instrumental to its ends. All furtherance of Religion by the State produces, in the best of cases, legal actions only.—But this result is not enough, seeing that the State must bring the Citizens to acquiesce in the requirements of the Law, and not only conform their actions to these.—Moreover, this result is uncertain, or even improbable, and, at least, is better attainable by other methods.—Further, this method is attended with such preponderating disadvantages, that these alone absolutely forbid the State to make use of it.—Refutation of an objection likely to be advanced here, founded on the want of culture in several classes of the people. Lastly, the following consideration decides the question on the highest and most general grounds, that the State has no access to the real channels of influence on Morality, viz. the form of the internal acceptation of Religious conceptions.—Hence, everything pertaining to Religion is wholly beyond the sphere of the State's activity. CHAPTER VIII. 97 Means possible for this end.—Principally reducible to the restraining of Sensualism.—General considerations on the influence of the Sensuous in Man.—Influence of Sensuous impressions considered in the Abstract.—Difference of this influence according to their own different nature: chiefly the difference between the influence of the energizing and other sensuous impressions.—Union of the Sensuous and the Spiritual in the sense of the Beautiful and the Sublime.—Influence of the Sensuous element in Human Nature on the inquiring and intellectual,—on the creative, moral powers of man.—Evils and Dangers of Sensualism.—Application of these Considerations to the present Inquiry, and examination of the question, whether the State should attempt to act positively on Morals.—Every such at
