support of the
laws and the constitution--that is to say, the foundation of the social
structure, which would stand with difficulty if faith did not lend power
to the authority of the government and the importance of the ruler.

_Phil_. Oh, yes, princes look upon God as a goblin, wherewith to
frighten grown-up children to bed when nothing else is of any avail; it
is for this reason that they depend so much on God. All right; meanwhile
I should like to advise every ruling lord to read through, on a certain
day every six months, the fifteenth chapter of the First Book of Samuel,
earnestly and attentively; so that he may always have in mind what it
means to support the throne on the altar. Moreover, since burning at the
stake, that _ultima ratio theologorum_, is a thing of the past, this
mode of government has lost its efficacy. For, as you know, religions
are like glowworms: before they can shine it must be dark. A certain
degree of general ignorance is the condition of every religion, and is
the element in which alone it is able to exist. While, as soon as
astronomy, natural science, geology, history, knowledge of countries and
nations have spread their light universally, and philosophy is finally
allowed to speak, every faith which is based on miracle and revelation
must perish, and then philosophy will take its place. In Europe the day
of knowledge and science dawned towards the end of the fifteenth century
with the arrival of the modern Greek philosophers, its sun rose higher
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which were so productive,
and scattered the mists of the Middle Age. In the same proportion, both
Church and Faith were obliged to gradually disappear; so that in the
eighteenth century English and French philosophers became direct
antagonists, until finally, under Frederick the Great, Kant came and
took away from religious belief the support it had formerly received
from philosophy, and emancipated the _ancilla theologiae_ in that he
attacked the question with German thoroughness and perseverance, whereby
it received a less frivolous, that is to say, a more earnest tone. As a
result of this we see in the nineteenth century Christianity very much
weakened, almost stripped entirely of serious belief, nay, fighting for
its own existence; while apprehensive princes try to raise it up by an
artificial stimulant, as the doctor tries to revive a dying man by the
aid of a drug. There is a passage from Condorce