ng-up for the great brute
masses. In this antithesis we have before us the two poles of
humanity:--the wisdom of the individual and the bestiality of the
masses, both of which, however, find their point of harmony in the moral
kingdom. Who has not thought of the saying from the Kurral--"Vulgar
people look like men; but I have never seen anything like them." The
more highly cultured man may always explain religion to himself _cum
grano salis_; the man of learning, the thoughtful mind, may, in secret,
exchange it for a philosophy. And yet _one_ philosophy would not do for
everybody; each philosophy by the laws of affinity attracts a public to
whose education and mental capacities it is fitted. So there is always
an inferior metaphysical system of the schools for the educated
plebeians, and a higher system for the _elite_. Kant's lofty doctrine,
for example, was degraded to meet the requirements of the schools, and
ruined by Fries, Krug, Salat, and similar people. In short, Goethe's
dictum is as applicable here as anywhere: _One does not suit all_. Pure
belief in revelation and pure metaphysics are for the two extremes; and
for the intermediate steps mutual modifications of both in countless
combinations and gradations. The immeasurable differences which nature
and education place between men have made this necessary.

_Phil._ This point of view reminds me seriously of the mysteries of the
ancients which you have already mentioned; their aim at bottom seems to
have lain in remedying the evil arising out of the differences of mental
capacities and education. Their plan was to single out of the great
multitude a few people, to whom the unveiled truth was absolutely
incomprehensible, and to reveal the truth to them up to a certain point;
then out of these they singled out others to whom they revealed more, as
they were able to grasp more; and so on up to the Epopts. And so we got
[Greek: mikra, kai meizona, kai megista mystaeria]. The plan was based
on a correct knowledge of the intellectual inequality of mankind.

_Demop_. To a certain extent the education in our lower, middle, and
high schools represents the different forms of initiation into the
mysteries.

_Phil_. Only in a very approximate way, and this only in so far as
subjects of higher knowledge were written about exclusively in Latin.
But since that has ceased to be so all the mysteries are profaned.

_Demop_. However that may be, I wish to remind you, in speakin