come too late. And supposing they had already found truth, it
would surpass their powers of comprehension. In any case it would be a
mere allegorical investiture of truth, a parable, or a myth that would
be of any good to them. There must be, as Kant has said, a public
standard of right and virtue, nay, this must at all times flutter high.
It is all the same in the end what kind of heraldic figures are
represented on it, if they only indicate what is meant. Such an
allegorical truth is at all times and everywhere, for mankind at large,
a beneficial substitute for an eternally unattainable truth, and in
general, for a philosophy which it can never grasp; to say nothing of
its changing its form daily, and not having as yet attained any kind of
general recognition. Therefore practical aims, my good Philalethes, have
in every way the advantage of theoretical.

_Phil._ This closely resembles the ancient advice of Timaeus of Locrus,
the Pythagorean: [Greek: tas psychas apeirgomes pseudesi logois, ei ka
mae agaetai alathesi].[13] And I almost suspect that it is your wish,
according to the fashion of to-day, to remind me--

"Good friend, the time is near
When we may feast off what is good in peace."

And your recommendation means that we should take care in time, so that
the waves of the dissatisfied, raging masses may not disturb us at
table. But the whole of this point of view is as false as it is nowadays
universally liked and praised; this is why I make haste to put in a
protest against it. It is _false_ that state, justice, and law cannot be
maintained without the aid of religion and its articles of belief, and
that justice and police regulations need religion as a complement in
order to carry out legislative arrangements. It is _false_ if it were
repeated a hundred times. For the ancients, and especially the Greeks,
furnish us with striking _instantia in contrarium_ founded on fact. They
had absolutely nothing of what we understand by religion. They had no
sacred documents, no dogma to be learnt, and its acceptance advanced by
every one, and its principles inculcated early in youth. The servants of
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, lustratio