ABSTRACT
In popular thought it is taken for granted that to be religious is to accept in some form or other the theocratic view that God governs the universe. In place of the popular conception of religion as a matter of commandments and obedience, reward and punishment, in a word, as a form of government, these great teachers placed their emphasis upon the conversion, the education, and the discipline of the human will. To those who want salvation cheap, and most men do, there is very little comfort to be had out of the great teachers. Wisdom will seem inhuman. In a sense it is inhuman, for it is so uncommon. There is an aristocratic principle in all the religions which have attained wide acceptance. But because the teaching of the sages was incomprehensible, the multitude, impressed but also bewildered, ignored them as teachers and worshipped them as gods.
