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What is the use of grounds of consolation and tranquillity which are constantly overshadowed by the Damocles-sword of illusion? The truth, my dear sir, is the only safe thing; the truth alone remains steadfast and trusty; it is the only solid consolation; it is the indestructible diamond. Demopheles. Yes, if you had truth in your pocket, ready to favor us with it on demand.
Here lies the irreparable mischief, the permanent evil; and this is why religion has always been and always will be in conflict with the noble endeavor after pure truth. Demopheles. Oh no! that danger is guarded against. If religion mayn't exactly confess its allegorical nature, it gives sufficient indication of it. Philalethes. How so? Demopheles. In its mysteries.
Demopheles. They'll take good care not to do so. Philalethes. I'm surprised to hear you say that: it's a bad look out for religion. However, there are academies which, in proposing a subject for competition, make it a secret condition that the prize is to go to the man who best interprets their own view.
The only difference is that, whilst a natural leg as a rule preceded the wooden one, religion has everywhere got the start of philosophy. Demopheles. That may be, but still for a man who hasn't a natural leg, a wooden one is of great service.
These have been the result of popular metaphysics imposed from without; so I stick to the old saying that you can't get grapes from thistles, nor expect good to come from a pack of lies. Demopheles. How often must I repeat that religion is anything but a pack of lies? It is truth itself, only in a mythical, allegorical vesture.
How can anyone think out the true philosophy when he is prepared like this? Demopheles. Even if the true philosophy were to be discovered, religion wouldn't disappear from the world, as you seem to think.
What caused this utter transformation? Migration and Christianity. Demopheles. I am glad you reminded me of it. Migration was the source of the evil; Christianity the dam on which it broke. It was chiefly by Christianity that the raw, wild hordes which came flooding in were controlled and tamed. The savage man must first of all learn to kneel, to venerate, to obey; after that he can be civilized.
For, if you take that point of view, the pure and sacred endeavor after truth would, to say the least, appear quixotic, and even criminal, if it ventured, in its feeling of justice, to denounce the authoritative creed as a usurper who had taken possession of the throne of truth and maintained his position by keeping up the deception. Demopheles.
Simplex sigillum veri: the naked truth must be so simple and intelligible that it can be imparted to all in its true form, without any admixture of myth and fable, without disguising it in the form of religion. Demopheles. You've no notion how stupid most people are. Philalethes. I am only expressing a hope which I can't give up.
But since that has ceased to be the case, all the mysteries are profaned. Demopheles. However that may be, I wanted to remind you that you should look at religion more from the practical than from the theoretical side. Personified metaphysics may be the enemy of religion, but all the same personified morality will be its friend.
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