ll the
same, interpret religion to himself _cum grano salis_; the man of
learning, the contemplative spirit may secretly exchange it for a
philosophy. But here again one philosophy wouldn't suit everybody; by
the laws of affinity every system would draw to itself that public to
whose education and capacities it was most suited. So there is always an
inferior metaphysical system of the schools for the educated multitude,
and a higher one for the _elite_. Kant's lofty doctrine, for instance,
had to be degraded to the level of the schools and ruined by such men as
Fries, Krug and Salat. In short, here, if anywhere, Goethe's maxim is
true, _One does not suit all_. Pure faith in revelation and pure
metaphysics are for the two extremes, and for the intermediate steps
mutual modifications of both in innumerable combinations and gradations.
And this is rendered necessary by the immeasurable differences which
nature and education have placed between man and man.

_Philalethes_. The view you take reminds me seriously of the mysteries
of the ancients, which you mentioned just now. Their fundamental purpose
seems to have been to remedy the evil arising from the differences of
intellectual capacity and education. The plan was, out of the great
multitude utterly impervious to unveiled truth, to select certain
persons who might have it revealed to them up to a given point; out of
these, again, to choose others to whom more would be revealed, as being
able to grasp more; and so on up to the Epopts. These grades correspond
to the little, greater and greatest mysteries. The arrangement was
founded on a correct estimate of the intellectual inequality of mankind.

_Demopheles_. To some extent the education in our lower, middle and high
schools corresponds to the varying grades of initiation into the
mysteries.

_Philalethes_. In a very approximate way; and then only in so far as
subjects of higher knowledge are written about exclusively in Latin. But
since that has ceased to be the case, all the mysteries are profaned.

_Demopheles_. However that may be, I wanted to remind you that you
should look at religion more from the practical than from the
theoretical side. _Personified_ metaphysics may be the enemy of
religion, but all the same _personified_ morality will be its friend.
Perhaps the metaphysical element in all religions is false; but the
moral element in all is true. This might perhaps be presumed from the
fact that they all dis