which in themselves are gaseous, but which for official uses, as also for preservation or transmission, must be bound to a firm, palpable base, because they would otherwise volatilise.  For example, chlorine is for all such purposes applied only in the form of chlorides.  But if truth, pure, abstract, and free from anything of a mythical nature, is always to remain unattainable by us all, philosophers included, it might be compared to fluorine, which cannot be presented by itself alone, but only when combined with other stuffs.  Or, to take a simpler simile, truth, which cannot be expressed in any other way than by myth and allegory, is like water that cannot be transported without a vessel; but philosophers, who insist upon possessing it pure, are like a person who breaks the vessel in order to get the water by itself.  This is perhaps a true analogy.  At any rate, religion is truth allegorically and mythically expressed, and thereby made possible and digestible to mankind at large.  For mankind could by no means digest it pure and unadulterated, just as we cannot live in pure oxygen but require an addition of four-fifths of nitrogen.  And without speaking figuratively, the profound significance and high aim of life can only be revealed and shown to the masses symbolically, because they are not capable of grasping life in its real sense; while philosophy should be like the Eleusinian mysteries, for the few, the elect.

Phil. I understand.  The matter resolves itself into truth putting on the dress of falsehood.  But in doing so it enters into a fatal alliance.  What a dangerous weapon is given into the hands of those who have the authority to make use of falsehood as the vehicle of truth!  If such is the case, I fear there will be more harm caused by the falsehood than good derived from the truth.  If the allegory were admitted to be such, I should say nothing against it; but in that case it would be deprived of all respect, and consequently of all efficacy.  Therefore the allegory must assert a claim, which it must maintain, to be true in sensu proprio while at the most it is true in sensu allegorico.  Here lies the incurable mischief, the permanent evil; and therefore religion is always in conflict, and always will be with the free and noble striving after pure truth.

Demop.  Indeed, no.  Care has been taken to prevent that.  If religion may not exactly admit its allegorical nature, it indicates it at any rate sufficiently.

Phil.  And in what way does it do that?

Demop.  In its mysteries. Mystery is at bottom only the theological terminus technicus for religious allegory.  All religions have their mysteries.  In reality, a mystery is a palpably absurd dogma which conceals in itself a lofty truth, which by itself would be absolutely incomprehensible to the ordinary intelligence of the raw masses.  The masses accept it in this disguise on trust and