religion preached just as little about morals, and the ministers

concerned themselves very little about any kind of morality or in general about what the people either did or left undone. No such thing. But the duty of the priests was confined merely to temple ceremonies, prayers, songs, sacrifices, processions, lustrations, and the like, all of which aimed at anything but the moral improvement of the individual. The whole of their so-called religion consisted, and particularly in the towns, in some of the _deorum majorum gentium_ having temples here and there, in which the aforesaid worship was conducted as an affair of state, when in reality it was an affair of police. No one, except the functionaries engaged, was obliged in any way to be present, or even to believe in it. In the whole of antiquity there is no trace of any obligation to believe in any kind of dogma. It was merely any one who openly denied the existence of the gods or calumniated them that was punished; because by so doing he insulted the state which served these gods; beyond this every one was allowed to think what he chose of them. If any one wished to win the favour of these gods privately by prayer or sacrifice he was free to do so at his own cost and risk; if he did not do it, no one had anything to say against it, and least of all the State. Every Roman had his own Lares and Penates at home, which were, however, at bottom nothing more than the revered portraits of his ancestors. The ancients had no kind of decisive, clear, and least of all dogmatically fixed ideas about the immortality of the soul and a life hereafter, but every one in his own way had lax, vacillating, and problematical ideas; and their ideas about the gods were just as various, individual, and vague. So that the ancients had really no _religion_ in our sense of the word. Was it for this reason that anarchy and lawlessness reigned among them? Is not law and civil order rather so much their work, that it still constitutes the foundation of ours? Was not property perfectly secure, although it consisted of slaves for the greater part? And did not this condition of things last longer than a thousand years? So I cannot perceive, and must protest against the practical aims and necessity of religion in the sense which you have indicated, and in such general favour to-day, namely, as an indispensable foundation of all legislative regulations. For from such a standpoint the pure and sacred striving after light and truth, to say the least, would seem quixotic and criminal if it should venture in its feeling of justice to denounce the authoritative belief as a usurper who has taken possession of the throne of truth and maintained it by continuing the deception. _Demop._ But religion is not opposed to truth; for it itself teaches truth. Only it must not allow truth to appear in its naked form, because its sphere of activity is not a narrow auditory, but the world and humanity at large, and therefore it must conform to the requirements and comprehension of so great and mixed a public; or, to use a medical simile, it must not present it pure, but must as a medium make use of a mythical vehicle. Truth may also be compared in this respect to certain chemical stuffs which in themselves are gaseous, but which for official uses, as also for preservation or transmission, must be bound to a firm, palpable base, because they would otherwise volatilise. For example, chlorine is for all such purposes applied only in the form of chlorides. But if truth, pure, abstract, and free from anything of a mythical nature, is always to remain unattainable by us all, philosophers included, it might be compared to fluorine, which cannot be presented by itself alone, but only when combined with other stuffs. Or, to take a simpler simile, truth, which cannot be expressed in any other way than by myth and allegory, is like water that cannot be transported without a vessel; but philosophers, who insist upon possessing it pure, are like a person who breaks the vessel in order to get the water by itself. This is perhaps a true analogy. At any rate, religion is truth allegorically and mythically expressed, and thereby made possible and digestible to mankind at large. For mankind could by no means digest it pure and unadulterated, just as we cannot live in pure oxygen but require an addition of four-fifths of nitrogen. And without speaking figuratively, the profound significance and high aim of life can only be revealed and shown to the masses symbolically, because they are not capable of grasping life in its real sense; while philosophy should be like the Eleusinian mysteries, for the few, the elect. _Phil._ I understand. The matter resolves itself into truth putting on the dress of falsehood. But in doing so it enters into a fatal alliance. What a dangerous weapon is given into the hands of those who have the authority to make use of falsehood as the vehicle of truth! If such is the case, I fear there will be more harm caused by the falsehood than good derived from the truth. If the allegory were admitted to be such, I should say nothing against it; but in that case it would be deprived of all respect, and consequently of all efficacy. Therefore the allegory must assert a claim, which it must maintain, to be true in _sensu proprio_ while at the most it is true in _sensu allegorico_. Here lies the incurable mischief, the permanent evil; and therefore religion is always in conflict, and always will be with the free and noble striving after pure truth. _Demop_. Indeed, no. Care has been taken to prevent that. If religion may not exactly admit its allegorical nature, it indicates it at any rate sufficiently. _Phil_. And in what way does it do that? _Demop_. In its mysteries. _Mystery_ is at bottom only the theological _terminus technicus_ for religious allegory. All religions have their mysteries. In reality, a mystery is a palpably absurd dogma which conceals in itself a lofty truth, which by itself would be absolutely incomprehensible to the ordinary intelligence of the raw masses. The masses accept it in this disguise on trust and faith, without allowing themselves to be led astray by its absurdity, which is palpable to them; and thereby they participate in the kernel of the matter so far as they are able. I may add as an explanation that the use of mystery has been attempted even in philosophy; for example, when Pascal, who was pietest, mathematician, and philosopher in one, says in this threefold character: _God is everywhere centre and nowhere periphery_. Malebranche has also truly remarked, _La liberté est un mystère_. One might go further, and maintain that in religions everything is really mystery. For it is utterly impossible to impart truth in _sensu proprio_ to the multitude in its crudity; it is only a mythical and allegorical reflection of it that can fall to its share and enlighten it. Naked truth must not appear before the eyes of the profane vulgar; it can only appear before them closely veiled. And it is for this reason that it is unfair to demand of a religion that it should be true in _sensu proprio_, and that, _en passant_. Rationalists and Supernaturalists of to-day are so absurd. They both start with the supposition that religion must be the truth; and while the former prove that it is not, the latter obstinately maintain that it is; or rather the former cut up and dress the allegory in such a way that it could be true in _sensu proprio_ but would in that case become a platitude. The latter wish to maintain, without further dressing, that it is true in _sensu proprio_, which, as they should know, can only be carried into execution by inquisitions and the stake. While in reality, myth and allegory are the essential elements of