The chief aim of a religion is to regulate both the relations of the individual man with his Maker and his rights and duties towards his fellow men on a universal plane, independently, that is to say, of the views and habits of the social group of which he is a member. The rules of conduct thus enjoined apply less to the man of any given nation or period than to man in his capacity of son, father, master, servant, neighbor. Since these rules are based on human nature, pure and simple, they hold good for men in general all the world over.
 
—Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Régime and the French Revolution