WHAT IS RELIGION? 327
Mankind can be saved from its ills only by being freed both from the hypnotism in which the priests are holding it, and from that into which the learned are leading it. To pour anything into a full bottle one must first empty out what it contains. And similarly it is necessary to free men from the deception of their false faith, in order that they may be able to adopt a true religion : that is, a correct relation (in accord with the development humanity has attained) towards the Source of all — towards God ; and that from this rela- tion, they may obtain guidance for their actions.
' But is there any true religion } Religions are endlessly various, and we have no right to call one of them true, just because it most nearly suits our own taste,^ — is what people say who look at the external forms of religion as at some disease from which they feel themsehes free, but from which other people still suffer. But this is a mistake ; religions diifer in their external forms, but they are all alike in their funda- mental principles. And it is these principles, that are fundamental to all religions, that form the true religion which alone at the present time is suitable for us all, and the adoption of which alone can save men from their ills.
Mankind has lived long, and just as it has produced and improved its practical inventions through suc- cessive generations, so also it could not fail to produce and improve those spiritual principles which have formed the bases of its life, as well as the rules of conduct that resulted from those principles. If blind men do not see these, that does not prove that they do not exist.
This religion of our times, common to all men, exists — not as some sect with all its peculiarities and perver- sions, but as a religion consisting of those principles which are alike in all the widespread religions known to us, and professed by more than nine-tenths of the
