§174

A dialogue

Demopheles: Just between us, dear friend, I do not like how you occasionally display your philosophical ability using sarcasms, indeed outright mockery of religion. Each person's faith is sacred to him, and so it should also be to you.

Philalethes: I dispute the conclusion! I do not see why I should have respect for a pack of lies due to the simple-mindedness of others. I respect the truth everywhere, but for the very same reason not what opposes it. Truth will never shine on earth as long as you shackle minds in such a manner. My motto is: Let truth reign, even if the world should perish, or adjusted for the lawyers: Let justice be done, even if the world should perish. Every faculty should have an analogous motto of their own.

Demopheles: Then I suppose the medical faculty's would be: fabricate pills, even if the world should perish – which would be the easiest to bring about.

Philalethes: Heaven help us! Everything with a pinch of salt.

Demopheles: Good then, and that is exactly why I wanted you also to understand and view religion with a pinch of salt, and see that the needs of the people must be met according to the measure of their power of comprehension. Religion is the only means of proclaiming and rendering palpable the lofty meaning of life to the crude mind and clumsy understanding of the masses, who are deeply sunk in lowly toil and material labour. For mankind, as they normally are, originally have a mind for nothing other than the gratification of their physical needs and desires, and after that for a bit of entertainment and fun. Founders of religion and philosophers come into the world to shake them out of their lethargy and to point out the lofty meaning of existence; philosophers for the few, the exempt; founders of religion for the many, for humanity on a large scale. For ‘it is impossible for the broad masses to be philosophically educated’, as even your Plato said, and you should not forget. Religion is the metaphysics of the people, which we must absolutely allow them and therefore outwardly respect; for to discredit it means to deprive them of it.