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THE
RELIGION OF PLUTARCH
CHAPTER I.
General character of Modern European Religions: their cardinal appeal to Emotion—Roman Religion: its sanctions chiefly rational: the causes of its failure: its place as a factor in Morality taken by Greek Philosophy—Early Greek Morality based partly on Religion, partly on Reason, which, in the form of Philosophy, eventually supplies the main inspiration to Goodness—Gradual limitation of Philosophy to Ethics.
The various religious revivals which the European world has witnessed during the prolonged course of the Christian era; the great attempts which the modern conscience has made from time to time to bring itself into a more intimate and fruitful relation with the principles that make for goodness of character and righteousness of life: have, in general, taken the form less of reasoned invocations to the cultivated intelligence than of emotional appeals to the natural passions and prepossessions of humanity. The hope of reward, the fear of punishment, a spontaneous love of certain moral qualities, and of certain personalities imagined as embodying these qualities; a heartfelt
