s
respect to certain chemical stuffs which in themselves are gaseous, but
which for medicinal uses, as also for preservation or transmission, must
be bound to a stable, solid base, because they would otherwise
volatilize. Chlorine gas, for example, is for all purposes applied only
in the form of chlorides. But if truth, pure, abstract and free from all
mythical alloy, is always to remain unattainable, even by philosophers,
it might be compared to fluorine, which cannot even be isolated, but
must always appear in combination with other elements. Or, to take a
less scientific simile, truth, which is inexpressible except by means of
myth and allegory, is like water, which can be carried about only in
vessels; a philosopher who insists on obtaining it pure is like a man
who breaks the jug in order to get the water by itself. This is,
perhaps, an exact analogy. At any rate, religion is truth allegorically
and mythically expressed, and so rendered attainable and digestible by
mankind in general. Mankind couldn't possibly take it pure and unmixed,
just as we can't breathe pure oxygen; we require an addition of four
times its bulk in nitrogen. In plain language, the profound meaning, the
high aim of life, can only be unfolded and presented to the masses
symbolically, because they are incapable of grasping it in its true
signification. Philosophy, on the other hand, should be like the
Eleusinian mysteries, for the few, the _elite_.

_Philalethes_. I understand. It comes, in short, to truth wearing the
garment of falsehood. But in doing so it enters on a fatal alliance.
What a dangerous weapon is put into the hands of those who are
authorized to employ falsehood as the vehicle of truth! If it is as you
say, I fear the damage caused by the falsehood will be greater than any
advantage the truth could ever produce. Of course, if the allegory were
admitted to be such, I should raise no objection; but with the admission
it would rob itself of all respect, and consequently, of all utility.
The allegory must, therefore, put in a claim to be true in the proper
sense of the word, and maintain the claim; while, at the most, it is
true only in an allegorical sense. 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 natu