In a general way he has a notion that the gods are displeased at certain forms of crime, and that they approve of justice and the carrying out of compacts.  The gods overlook the state, because the state engages them so to do, and therefore to break the laws of the state is to anger the gods of the state.  But this is rather subtle for the common man, and there is generally no understood immediate relation between these gods and his moral conduct, unless he has sworn an oath by one or other of them.  The purpose of calling a god to witness is to bring upon a perjurer the anger of the offended deity.  But he entertains no such conception as the modern one of “sin” or of “remorse for sin.”  “Sin” is either a breach of the secular law or breach of a contract with a deity and “remorse” is but fear of or regret for the consequences.

His morality is determined by the laws of the state, family discipline, and social custom.  For that reason his vices on the positive side will mostly be those of his appetites, and on the negative side a want of charity and compassion.  He may be guiltless of lying and stealing, murder and violence; he may be honest and law-abiding; but there is nothing to make him temperate, continent, or gentle.  His avowed code is “duty,” and duty is defined by law and tradition.

If this is the religious condition of the common-place man or woman—­a blend of superstition, formalism, and tolerance—­it is by no means that of the educated thinker.  Such persons were for the most part freethinkers.  Many of them, finding no better guide to conduct, conform to the “religion” of the state without any real belief in its gods or attaching any importance to its ceremonies.  They do not feel called upon to propagate any other views, and they probably think the current notions are at least as good for the ignorant as any others.  If they are poets, like Horace or Lucan, they will dress up the mythology, mostly from Greek models, and write fluently about Jupiter and Juno, Venus and Mercury, either attributing to them the recognised characters and legends, or varying them so as to make them more picturesque and interesting—­perhaps even improving them—­but all the time believing no more in the stories they are telling, or in the deities themselves, than Tennyson need have believed in King Arthur and Guinevere.  The gods are good poetic material and are sure to afford popular, or at least inoffensive, reading.  The poets doubtless do something to humanise and beautify the popular conception of a deity, but they seldom deliberately set out with any such purpose.  If the educated are not poets, but public men of affairs, they may believe just as little, and yet regard the established cult of the gods as an excellent discipline for the vulgar and the best known means of upholding the national principle of “duty.”  If they are philosophers they may not, and the Epicureans in reality do not, believe in the gods at all—­certainly not