nd should have no voice. A Jewish child becomes a Jew,
a Christian child a Christian, and a Buddhist child a Buddhist. What does
this prove? Unquestionably, that in the highest concern in life the child
is not allowed a voice. My friend asks indignantly: "Is there anything in
face of our knowledge, and of the realm of nature and of man's position in
it, so unbearable, yes so odious, as the inoculation of such error in the
tender consciousness of our school children? I shudder when I think that
in thousands of our churches and schools this systematic ruin of the
greatest of all gifts, the consciousness, the human brain, is daily, even
hourly, going on. Max, can you, too, still cling to the God-fable?" etc.

Now I have explained clearly and concisely in what sense I cling to the
God-fable, and I should like to know if I have convinced my Horseherd. I
belong, above all, to those who do not consider the world an irrational
chaos, and also to those who cannot concede that there can be reason
without a reasoner. Reason is an activity, or, as others have it, an
attribute, and there can neither be an activity without an agent, nor an
attribute without a subject; at least, not in the world in which we live.
When ordinary persons and even professional philosophers speak of reason
as if it were a jewel that can be placed in a drawer or in a human skull,
they are simply myth-makers. It is precisely in this ever recurring
elevation of an adjective or a verb to a noun, of a predicate to a
subject, that this disease of language, as I have called mythology, has
its deepest roots. Here lies the genesis of the majority of gods, not by
any means, as it is generally believed I have taught, merely in later
quibbles and misunderstandings, which are interesting and popular, but
have little reference to the deepest nature of the myth. We must not take
these matters too lightly.

I recognise therefore a reasoner, and consequent reason in the world, or
in other words, I believe in a thinker and ruler of the world, but gladly
concede that this Being so infinitely transcends our faculties of
comprehension, that even to wish only to give him a name borders on
madness. If, in spite of all of this, we use such names as Jehovah, Allah,
Deva, God, Father, Creator, this is only a result of human weakness. I
cling therefore to the God-fable in the sense which is more fully set
forth in my letter, and it pleased me very much to see that at least a few
of