But these are at best an insignificant minority; and their relative importance will necessarily diminish with the development into its natural consequences of the root idea of legalism.

For legalism, just so far as it is strong, sincere, and self-confident, will try to cover the whole of human life.

The religion that is content to do less than this, the religion that acquiesces in the distinction between what is religious and what is secular, is, as we shall presently see, a religion in decay.

Religion may perhaps be defined as Man's instinctive effort to bring a central aim into his life and so provide himself with an authoritative standard of values.
In its highest and purest form, Religion controls Man's life, both as a whole and in all its essential details, through the central aim or spiritual ideal which it sets before him and the consequent standard of values with which it equips him.

But legalism is debarred by its distrust of human nature from trying to control the details of life through any central aim or ideal; and its assumption that all the commandments of the Law are of divine origin, and therefore equally binding upon Man, is obviously incompatible with the conception of a standard of moral worth.