 Though his writings contain a great deal of insight that is relevant for a strictly naturalistic philosophy, religious concerns figure prominently from Royce’s first major publication, The Religious Aspect of Philosophy, to his last two, The Sources of Religious Insight and The Problem of Christianity. As has been indicated, the main focus of Royce’s early work was metaphysical. In The World and the Individual he plainly identified the object of his inquiry as “the Individual of Individuals, namely the Absolute, or God himself” (Royce 1899–1901, 1:40). Critics of Royce’s early works admired his metaphysical argumentation but found his conception of God wanting. Peirce observed that the Absolute Mind bore little resemblance to the God that people seek in churches — it is not the kind of being anyone would worship. James objected that if all our errors and sorrows are in fact reconciled in the Absolute, then finite persons would seem to be exonerated from ultimate responsibility for their actions: they might as well enjoy a lifelong “moral holiday.” With The Philosophy of Loyalty Royce began to devote more attention to the practical questions of ethics and the philosophy of community. In his last works he drew upon the notion of loyalty to explain the nature of religious experience in human communities.