You are in error, said the parties, pointing one to the other.  We alone are in possession of reason and truth.  We alone have the true law, the real rule of right and justice, the only means of happiness and perfection.  All other men are either blind or rebellious.

And great agitation prevailed.

Then the legislator, after enforcing silence, loudly exclaimed: 

What, O people! is this passionate emotion?  Whither will this quarrel conduct you?  What can you expect from this dissension?  The earth has been for ages a field of disputation, and you have shed torrents of blood in your controversies.  What have you gained by so many battles and tears?  When the strong has subjected the weak to his opinion, has he thereby aided the cause of truth?

O nations! take counsel of your own wisdom.  When among yourselves disputes arise between families and individuals, how do you reconcile them?  Do you not give them arbitrators?

Yes, cried the whole multitude.

Do so then to the authors of your present dissensions.  Order those who call themselves your instructors, and who force their creeds upon you, to discuss before you their reasons.  Since they appeal to your interests, inform yourselves how they support them.

And you, chiefs and governors of the people! before dragging the masses into the quarrels resulting from your diverse opinions, let the reasons for and against your views be given.  Let us establish one solemn controversy, one public scrutiny of truth—­not before the tribunal of a corruptible individual, or of a prejudiced party, but in the grand forum of mankind—­guarded by all their information and all their interests.  Let the natural sense of the whole human race be our arbiter and judge.

CHAPTER XX.

The search of truth.

The people expressed their applause, and the legislator continued:  To proceed with order, and avoid all confusion, let a spacious semicircle be left vacant in front of the altar of peace and union; let each system of religion, and each particular sect, erect its proper distinctive standard on the line of this semicircle; let its chiefs and doctors place themselves around the standard, and their followers form a column behind them.

The semicircle being traced, and the order published, there instantly rose an innumerable multitude of standards, of all colors and of every form, like what we see in a great commercial port, when, on a day of rejoicing, a thousand different flags and streamers are floating from a forest of masts.

At the sight of this prodigious diversity, I turned towards the Genius and said: 

I thought that the earth was divided only into eight or ten systems of faith, and I then despaired of a reconciliation; I now behold thousands of different sects, and how can I hope for concord?