salis; the man of learning, the thoughtful mind, may, in secret, exchange it for a philosophy.  And yet one philosophy would not do for everybody; each philosophy by the laws of affinity attracts a public to whose education and mental capacities it is fitted.  So there is always an inferior metaphysical system of the schools for the educated plebeians, and a higher system for the elite.  Kant’s lofty doctrine, for example, was degraded to meet the requirements of the schools, and ruined by Fries, Krug, Salat, and similar people.  In short, Goethe’s dictum is as applicable here as anywhere:  One does not suit all.  Pure belief in revelation and pure metaphysics are for the two extremes; and for the intermediate steps mutual modifications of both in countless combinations and gradations.  The immeasurable differences which nature and education place between men have made this necessary.

Phil. This point of view reminds me seriously of the mysteries of the ancients which you have already mentioned; their aim at bottom seems to have lain in remedying the evil arising out of the differences of mental capacities and education.  Their plan was to single out of the great multitude a few people, to whom the unveiled truth was absolutely incomprehensible, and to reveal the truth to them up to a certain point; then out of these they singled out others to whom they revealed more, as they were able to grasp more; and so on up to the Epopts.  And so we got [Greek:  mikra, kai meizona, kai megista mystaeria].  The plan was based on a correct knowledge of the intellectual inequality of mankind.

Demop.  To a certain extent the education in our lower, middle, and high schools represents the different forms of initiation into the mysteries.

Phil.  Only in a very approximate way, and this only in so far as subjects of higher knowledge were written about exclusively in Latin.  But since that has ceased to be so all the mysteries are profaned.

Demop.  However that may be, I wish to remind you, in speaking of religion, that you should grasp it more from the practical and less from the theoretical side.  Personified metaphysics may be religion’s enemy, yet personified morality will be its friend.  Perhaps the metaphysics in all religions is false; but the morality in all is true.  This is to be surmised from the fact that in their metaphysics they contradict each other, while in their morality they agree.

Phil.  Which furnishes us with a proof of the rule of logic, that a true conclusion may follow from false premises.