X. Monism and the Philosophy of Spiritual Activity

The[^1] naive man who acknowledges nothing as real except what he can see with his eyes and grasp with his hands, demands for his moral life, too, grounds of action which are perceptible to his senses. He wants someone who will impart to him these grounds of action in a manner that his senses can apprehend. He is ready to allow these grounds of action to be dictated to him as commands by any man whom he considers wiser or more powerful than himself, or whom he acknowledges, for another reason, to be a power superior to himself. This accounts for the moral principles enumerated above, viz., the principles which rest on the authority of family, state, society, church and God. The most narrow-minded man still believes in the authority of some one person. He who is a little more advanced allows his moral conduct to be dictated by a majority (state, society). In every case he relies on some power which is perceptible. When, at last, the conviction dawns on someone that his authorities are fundamentally human beings just as weak as himself, then he seeks guidance from a higher power, from a Divine Being, whom, in turn, he endows with qualities perceptible to the senses. He conceives this Being as communicating to him the conceptual content of his moral life in a perceptible way—believing, for example, that God appears in the burning bush, or that He moves about among men in manifest human shape, and that their ears can hear His voice telling them what they are to do and what not to do.