The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. - Arthur Schopenhauer
_Demopheles_. But religion is not opposed to truth; it itself teaches
truth. And as the range of its activity is not a narrow lecture room,
but the world and humanity at large, religion must conform to the
requirements and comprehension of an audience so numerous and so mixed.
Religion must not let truth appear in its naked form; or, to use a
medical simile, it must not exhibit it pure, but must employ a mythical
vehicle, a medium, as it were. You can also compare truth in this
respect to certain chemical stuffs which in themselves are gaseous, but
which for medicinal uses, as also for preservation or transmission, must
be bound to a stable, solid base, because they would otherwise
volatilize. Chlorine gas, for example, is for all purposes applied only
in the form of chlorides. But if truth, pure, abstract and free from all
mythical alloy, is always to remain unattainable, even by philosophers,
it might be compared to fluorine, which cannot even be isolated, but
must always appear in combination with other elements. Or, to take a
less scientific simile, truth, which is inexpressible except by means of
myth and allegory, is like water, which can be carried about only in
vessels; a philosopher who insists on obtaining it pure is like a man
who breaks the jug in order to get the water by itself. This is,
perhaps, an exact analogy. At any rate, religion is truth allegorically
and mythically expressed, and so rendered attainable and digestible by
mankind in general. Mankind couldn't possibly take it pure and unmixed,
just as we can't breathe pure oxygen; we require an addition of four
times its bulk in nitrogen. In plain language, the profound meaning, the
high aim of life, can only be unfolded and presented to the masses
symbolically, because they are incapable of grasping it in its true
signification. Philosophy, on the other hand, should be like the
Eleusinian mysteries, for the few, the _elite_.
_Philalethes_. I understand. It comes, in short, to truth wearing the
garment of falsehood. But in doing so it enters on a fatal alliance.
What a dangerous weapon is put into the hands of those who are
authorized to employ falsehood as the vehicle of truth! If it is as you
say, I fear the damage caused by the falsehood will be greater than any
advantage the truth could ever produce. Of course, if the allegory were
admitted to be such, I should raise no objection; but with the admission
it would rob itself of all respect, and consequently, of all utility.
The allegory must, therefore, put in a claim to be true in the proper
sense of the word, and maintain the claim; while, at the most, it is
true only in an allegorical sense. Here lies the irreparable mischief,
the permanent evil; and this is why religion has always been and always
will be in conflict with the noble endeavor after pure truth.
_Demopheles_. Oh no! that danger is guarded against. If religion mayn't
exactly confess its allegorical nature, it gives sufficient indication
of it.
_Philalethes_. How so?
_Demopheles_. In its mysteries. "Mystery," is in reality only a
technical theological term for religious allegory. All religions have
their mysteries. Properly speaking, a mystery is a dogma which is
plainly absurd, but which, nevertheless, conceals in itself a lofty
truth, and one which by itself would be completely incomprehensible to
the ordinary understanding of the raw multitude. The multitude accepts
it in this disguise on trust, and believes it, without being led astray
by the absurdity of it, which even to its intelligence is obvious; and
in this way it participates in the kernel of the matter so far as it is
possible for it to do so. To explain what I mean, I may add that even in
philosophy an attempt has been made to make use of a mystery. Pascal,
for example, who was at once a pietist, a mathematician, and a
philosopher, says in this threefold capacity: _God is everywhere center
and nowhere periphery_. Malebranche has also the just remark: _Liberty
is a mystery_. One could go a step further and maintain that in
religions everything is mystery. For to impart truth, in the proper
sense of the word, to the multitude in its raw state is absolutely
impossible; all that can fall to its lot is to be enlightened by a
mythological reflection of it. Naked truth is out of place before the
eyes of the profane vulgar; it can only make its appearance thickly
veiled. Hence, it is unreasonable to require of a religion that it shall
be true in the proper sense of the word; and this, I may observe in
passing, is now-a-days the absurd contention of Rationalists and
Supernaturalists alike. Both start from the position that religion must
be the real truth; and while the former demonstrate that it is not the
truth, the latter obstinately maintain that it is; or rather, the former
dress up and arrange the allegorical element in such a way, that, in the
proper sense of the word, it could be true, but would be, in that case,
a platitude; while the latter wish to maintain that it is true in the
proper sense of the word, without any further dressing; a belief, which,
as we ought to know is only to be enforced by inquisitions and the
stake. As a fact, however, myth and allegory really form the proper
element of religion; and under this indispensable condition, which is
imposed by the intellectual limitation of the multitude, religion
provides a sufficient satisfaction for those metaphysical requirements
of mankind which are indestructible. It takes the place of that pure
philosophical truth which is infinitely difficult and perhaps never
attainable.
_Philalethes_. Ah! just as a wooden leg takes the place of a natural
one; it supplies what is lacking, barely does duty for it, claims to be
regarded as a natural leg, and is more or less artfully put together.
The only difference is that, whilst a natural leg as a rule preceded the
wooden one, religion has everywhere got the start of philosophy.
_Demopheles_. That may be, but still for a man who hasn't a natural leg,
a wooden one is of great service. You must bear in mind that the
metaphysical needs of mankind absolutely require satisfaction, because
the horizon of men's thoughts must have a background and not remain
unbounded. Man has, as a rule, no faculty for weighing reasons and
discriminating between what is false and what is true; and besides, the
labor which nature and the needs of nature impose upon him, leaves him
no time for such enquiries, or for the education which they presuppose.
In his case, therefore, it is no use talking of a reasoned conviction;
he has to fall back on belief and authority. If a really true philosophy
were to take the place of religion, nine-tenths at least of mankind
would have to receive it on authority; that is to say, it too would be a
matter of faith, for Plato's dictum, that the multitude can't be
philosophers, will always remain true. Authority, however, is an affair
of time and circumstance alone, and so it can't be bestowed on that
which has only reason in its favor, it must accordingly be allowed to
nothing but what has acquired it in the course of history, even if it is
only an allegorical representation of truth. Truth in this form,
supported by authority, appeals first of all to those elements in the
human constitution which are strictly metaphysical, that is to say, to
the need man feels of a theory in regard to the riddle of existence
which forces itself upon his notice, a need arising from the
consciousness that behind the physical in the world there is a
metaphysical, something permanent as the foundation of constant change.
Then it appeals to the will, to the fears and hopes of mortal beings
living in constant struggle; for whom, accordingly, religion creates
gods and demons whom they can cry to, appease and win over. Finally, it
appeals to that moral consciousness which is undeniably present in man,
lends to it that corroboration and support without which it would not
easily maintain itself in the struggle against so many temptations. It
is just from this side that religion affords an inexhaustible source of
consolation and comfort in the innumerable trials of life, a comfort
which does not leave men in death, but rather then only unfolds its full
efficacy. So religion may be compared to one who takes a blind man by
the hand and leads him, because he is unable to see for himself, whose
concern it is to reach his destination, not to look at everything by the
way.
_Philalethes_. That is certainly the strong point of religion. If it is
a fraud, it is a pious fraud; that is undeniable. But this makes priests
something between deceivers and teachers of morality; they daren't teach
the real truth, as you have quite rightly explained, even if they knew
it, which is not the case. A true philosophy, then, can always exist,
but not a true religion; true, I mean, in the proper understanding of
the word, not merely in that flowery or allegorical sense which you have
described; a sense in which all religions would be true, only in various
degrees. It is quite in keeping with the inextricable mixture of weal
and woe, honesty and deceit, good and evil, nobility and baseness, which
is the average characteristic of the world everywhere, that the most
important, the most lofty, the most sacred truths can make their
appearance only in combination with a lie, can even borrow strength from
a lie as from something that works more powerfully on mankind; and, as
revelation, must be ushered in by a lie. This might, indeed, be regarded
as the _cachet_ of the moral world. However, we won't give up the hope
that mankind will eventually reach a point of maturity and education at
which it can on the one side produce, and on the other receive, the true
philosophy. _Simplex sigillum veri_: the naked truth must be so simple
and intelligible that it can be imparted to all in its true form,
without any admixture of myth and fable, without disguising it in the
form of _religion_.
_Demopheles_. You've no notion how stupid most people are.
_Philalethes_. I am only expressing a hope which I can't give up. If it
were fulfilled, truth in its simple and intelligible form would of
course drive religion from the place it has so long occupied as its
representative, and by that very means kept open for it. The time would
have come when religion would have carried out her object and completed
her course: the race she had brought to years of discretion she could
dismiss, and herself depart in peace: that would be the _euthanasia_ of
religion. But as long as she lives, she has two faces, one of truth, one
of fraud. According as you look at one or the other, you will bear her
favor or ill-will. Religion must be regarded as a necessary evil, its
necessity resting on the pitiful imbecility of the great majority of
mankind, incapable of grasping the truth, and therefore requiring, in
its pressing need, something to take its place.
_Demopheles_. Really, one would think that you philosophers had truth in
a cupboard, and that all you had to do was to go and get it!
_Philalethes_. Well, if we haven't got it, it is chiefly owing to the
pressure put upon philosophy by religion at all times and in all places.
People have tried to make the expression and communication of truth,
even the contemplation and discovery of it, impossible, by putting
children, in their earliest years, into the hands of priests to be
manipulated; to have the lines, in which their fundamental thoughts are
henceforth to run, laid down with such firmness as, in essential
matters, to be fixed and determined for this whole life. When I take up
the writings even of the best intellects of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, (more especially if I have been engaged in
Oriental studies), I am sometimes shocked to see how they are paralyzed
and hemmed in on all sides by Jewish ideas. How can anyone think out the
true philosophy when he is prepared like this?
_Demopheles_. Even if the true philosophy were to be discovered,
religion wouldn't disappear from the world, as you seem to think. There
can't be one system of metaphysics for everybody; that's rendered
impossible by the natural differences of intellectual power between man
and man, and the differences, too, which education makes. It is a
necessity for the great majority of mankind to engage in that severe
bodily labor which cannot be dispensed with if the ceaseless
requirements of the whole race are to be satisfied. Not only does this
leave the majority no time for education, for learning, for
contemplation; but by virtue of the hard and fast antagonism between
muscles and mind, the intelligence is blunted by so much exhausting
bodily labor, and becomes heavy, clumsy, awkward, and consequently
incapable of grasping any other than quite simple situations. At least
nine-tenths of the human race falls under this category. But still the
people require a system of metaphysics, that is, an account of the world
and our existence, because such an account belongs to the most natural
needs of mankind, they require a popular system; and to be popular it
must combine many rare qualities. It must be easily understood, and at
the same time possess, on the proper points, a certain amount of
obscurity, even of impenetrability; then a correct and satisfactory
system of morality must be bound up with its dogmas; above all, it must
afford inexhaustible consolation in suffering and death; the consequence
of all this is, that it can only be true in an allegorical and not in a
real sense. Further, it must have the support of an authority which is
impressive by its great age, by being universally recognized, by its
documents, their tone and utterances; qualities which are so extremely
difficult to combine that many a man wouldn't be so ready, if he
considered the matter, to help to undermine a religion, but would
reflect that what he is attacking is a people's most sacred treasure. If
you want to form an opinion on religion, you should always bear in mind
the character of the great multitude for which it is destined, and form
a picture to yourself of its complete inferiority, moral and
intellectual. It is incredible how far this inferiority goes, and how
perseveringly a spark of truth will glimmer on even under the crudest
covering of monstrous fable or grotesque ceremony, clinging
indestructibly, like the odor of musk, to everything that has once come
into contact with it. In illustration of this, consider the profound
wisdom of the Upanishads, and then look at the mad idolatry in the India
of to-day, with its pilgrimages, processions and festivities, or at the
insane and ridiculous goings-on of the Saniassi. Still one can't deny
that in all this insanity and nonsense there lies some obscure purpose
which accords with, or is a reflection of the profound wisdom I
mentioned. But for the brute multitude, it had to be dressed up in this
form. In such a contrast as this we have the two poles of humanity, the
wisdom of the individual and the bestiality of the many, both of which
find their point of contact in the moral sphere. That saying from the
Kurral must occur to everybody. _Base people look like men, but I have
never seen their exact counterpart_. The man of education may, all 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 disagree in their metaphysics, but are in accord as
regards morality.
_Philalethes_. Which is an illustration of the rule of logic that false
premises may give a true conclusion.
_Demopheles_. Let me hold you to your conclusion: let me remind you that
religion has two sides. If it can't stand when looked at from its
theoretical, that is, its intellectual side; on the other hand, from the
moral side, it proves itself the only means of guiding, controlling and
mollifying those races of animals endowed with reason, whose kinship
with the ape does not exclude a kinship with the tiger. But at the same
time religion is, as a rule, a sufficient satisfaction for their dull
metaphysical necessities. You don't seem to me to possess a proper idea
of the difference, wide as the heavens asunder, the deep gulf between
your man of learning and enlightenment, accustomed to the process of
thinking, and the heavy, clumsy, dull and sluggish consciousness of
humanity's beasts of burden, whose thoughts have once and for all taken
the direction of anxiety about their livelihood, and cannot be put in
motion in any other; whose muscular strength is so exclusively brought
into play that the nervous power, which makes intelligence, sinks to a
very low ebb. People like that must have something tangible which they
can lay hold of on the slippery and thorny pathway of their life, some
sort of beautiful fable, by means of which things can be imparted to
them which their crude intelligence can entertain only in picture and
parable. Profound explanations and fine distinctions are thrown away
upon them. If you conceive religion in this light, and recollect that
its aims are above all practical, and only in a subordinate degree
theoretical, it will appear to you as something worthy of the highest
respect.
_Philalethes_. A respect which will finally rest upon the principle that
the end sanctifies the means. I don't feel in favor of a compromise on a
basis like that. Religion may be an excellent means of training the
perverse, obtuse and ill-disposed members of the biped race: in the eyes
of the friend of truth every fraud, even though it be a pious one, is to
be condemned. A system of deception, a pack of lies, would be a strange
means of inculcating virtue. The flag to which I have taken the oath is
truth; I shall remain faithful to it everywhere, and whether I succeed
or not, I shall fight for light and truth! If I see religion on the
wrong side--
_Demopheles_. But you won't. Religion isn't a deception: it is true and
the most important of all truths. Because its doctrines are, as I have
said, of such a lofty kind that the multitude can't grasp them without
an intermediary, because, I say, its light would blind the ordinary eye,
it comes forward wrapt in the veil of allegory and teaches, not indeed
what is exactly true in itself, but what is true in respect of the lofty
meaning contained in it; and, understood in this way, religion is the
truth.
_Philalethes_. It would be all right if religion were only at liberty to
be true in a merely allegorical sense. But its contention is that it is
downright true in the proper sense of the word. Herein lies the
deception, and it is here that the friend of truth must take up a
hostile position.
_Demopheles_. The deception is a _sine qua non_. If religion were to
admit that it was only the allegorical meaning in its doctrine which was
true, it would rob itself of all efficacy. Such rigorous treatment as
this would destroy its invaluable influence on the hearts and morals of
mankind. Instead of insisting on that with pedantic obstinacy, look at
its great achievements in the practical sphere, its furtherance of good
and kindly feelings, its guidance in conduct, the support and
consolation it gives to suffering humanity in life and death. How much
you ought to guard against letting theoretical cavils discredit in the
eyes of the multitude, and finally wrest from it, something which is an
inexhaustible source of consolation and tranquillity, something which,
in its hard lot, it needs so much, even more than we do. On that score
alone, religion should be free from attack.
_Philalethes_. With that kind of argument you could have driven Luther
from the field, when he attacked the sale of indulgences. How many a one
got consolation from the letters of indulgence, a consolation which
nothing else could give, a complete tranquillity; so that he joyfully
departed with the fullest confidence in the packet of them which he held
in his hand at the hour of death, convinced that they were so many cards
of admission to all the nine heavens. What is the use of grounds of
consolation and tranquillity which are constantly overshadowed by the
Damocles-sword of illusion? The truth, my dear sir, is the only safe
thing; the truth alone remains steadfast and trusty; it is the only
solid consolation; it is the indestructible diamond.
_Demopheles_. Yes, if you had truth in your pocket, ready to favor us
with it on demand. All you've got are metaphysical systems, in which
nothing is certain but the headaches they cost. Before you take anything
away, you must have something better to put in its place.
_Philalethes_. That's what you keep on saying. To free a man from error
is to give, not to take away. Knowledge that a thing is false is a
truth. Error always does harm; sooner or later it will bring mischief to
the man who harbors it. Then give up deceiving people; confess ignorance
of what you don't know, and leave everyone to form his own articles of
faith for himself. Perhaps they won't turn out so bad, especially as
they'll rub one another's corners down, and mutually rectify mistakes.
The existence of many views will at any rate lay a foundation of
tolerance. Those who possess knowledge and capacity may betake
themselves to the study of philosophy, or even in their own persons
carry the history of philosophy a step further.
_Demopheles_. That'll be a pretty business! A whole nation of raw
metaphysicians, wrangling and eventually coming to blows with one
another!
_Philalethes_. Well, well, a few blows here and there are the sauce of
life; or at any rate a very inconsiderable evil compared with such
things as priestly dominion, plundering of the laity, persecution of
heretics, courts of inquisition, crusades, religious wars, massacres of
St. Bartholomew. These have been the result of popular metaphysics
imposed from without; so I stick to the old saying that you can't get
grapes from thistles, nor expect good to come from a pack of lies.
_Demopheles_. How often must I repeat that religion is anything but a
pack of lies? It is truth itself, only in a mythical, allegorical
vesture. But when you spoke of your plan of everyone being his own
founder of religion, I wanted to say that a particularism like this is
totally opposed to human nature, and would consequently destroy all
social order. Man is a metaphysical animal,--that is to say, he has
paramount metaphysical necessities; accordingly, he conceives life above
all in its metaphysical signification, and wishes to bring everything
into line with that. Consequently, however strange it may sound in view
of the uncertainty of all dogmas, agreement in the fundamentals of
metaphysics is the chief thing, because a genuine and lasting bond of
union is only possible among those who are of one opinion on these
points. As a result of this, the main point of likeness and of contrast
between nations is rather religion than government, or even language;
and so the fabric of society, the State, will stand firm only when
founded on a system of metaphysics which is acknowledged by all. This,
of course, can only be a popular system,--that is, a religion: it
becomes part and parcel of the constitution of the State, of all the
public manifestations of the national life, and also of all solemn acts
of individuals. This was the case in ancient India, among the Persians,
Egyptians, Jews, Greeks and Romans; it is still the case in the Brahman,
Buddhist and Mohammedan nations. In China there are three faiths, it is
true, of which the most prevalent--Buddhism--is precisely the one which
is not protected by the State; still, there is a saying in China,
universally acknowledged, and of daily application, that "the three
faiths are only one,"--that is to say, they agree in essentials. The
Emperor confesses all three together at the same time. And Europe is the
union of Christian States: Christianity is the basis of every one of the
members, and the common bond of all. Hence Turkey, though geographically
in Europe, is not properly to be reckoned as belonging to it. In the
same way, the European princes hold their place "by the grace of God:"
and the Pope is the vicegerent of God. Accordingly, as his throne was
the highest, he used to wish all thrones to be regarded as held in fee
from him. In the same way, too, Archbishops and Bishops, as such,
possessed temporal power; and in England they still have seats and votes
in the Upper House. Protestant princes, as such, are heads of their
churches: in England, a few years ago, this was a girl eighteen years
old. By the revolt from the Pope, the Reformation shattered the European
fabric, and in a special degree dissolved the true unity of Germany by
destroying its common religious faith. This union, which had practically
come to an end, had, accordingly, to be restored later on by artificial
and purely political means. You see, then, how closely connected a
common faith is with the social order and the constitution of every
State. Faith is everywhere the support of the laws and the constitution,
the foundation, therefore, of the social fabric, which could hardly hold
together at all if religion did not lend weight to the authority of
government and the dignity of the ruler.