Note 28 — Chapter VIII · CONCLUSION

“Whatever power the threats of punishment and the promises of reward in an after-life may have had in lawless and superstitious ages, they have now but the smallest effect on conduct; their remoteness exhausts their power, and, moreover, the belief in them is slowly decaying.... All the law and commandments are in the Golden Rule; all ethics in the teaching that, if man be true to himself, he cannot be false to his fellows.”28—Edward Clodd.