in all countries where there is no Church religion, is the sense of honour, the law of the gentleman in the man and woman. Thus the real authority for the obligation to obey rules of moral conduct is the moral sense, the law of the gentleman, in man. The belief in God is, therefore, not necessary to make men obey rules of moral conduct.
It is this fact which has made sceptics like Voltaire and Tom Paine in the last century, and rationalists like Sir Hiram Maxim today, say, that the belief in God is a fraud or imposture invented by the founders of religion and kept up by priests. But that is a gross and preposterous libel. All great men, all men with great intellect, have all always believed in God. Confucius also believed in God, although he seldom spoke of it. Even Napoleon with his great, practical intellect believed in God. As the Psalmist says: "Only the fool—the man with a vulgar and shallow intellect—has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'" But the belief in God of man of great intellect is different from the belief in God of the mass of mankind. The belief in God of men of great intellect is that of Spinoza: a belief in the Divine Order of the Universe. Confucius said: "At fifty I knew the Ordinance of God"[1]—i.e., the Divine Order of the Universe. Men of great intellect have given different names to this Divine Order of the Universe. The German Fichte calls it the Divine idea of the Universe. In philosophical language in China it is
- ↑ 論語—Discourses and Sayings Chap. II 4.
