the medical profession would be, _Fiant pilulae,
et pereat mundus_, which would be the easiest to carry out.

_Phil._ Heaven forbid! Everything must be taken _cum grano salis_.

_Demop._ Exactly; and it is just for that reason that I want you to
accept religion _cum grano salis_, and to see that the needs of the
people must be met according to their powers of comprehension. Religion
affords the only means of proclaiming and making the masses of crude
minds and awkward intelligences, sunk in petty pursuits and material
work, feel the high import of life. For the ordinary type of man,
primarily, has no thought for anything else but what satisfies his
physical needs and longings, and accordingly affords him a little
amusement and pastime. Founders of religion and philosophers come into
the world to shake him out of his torpidity and show him the high
significance of existence: philosophers for the few, the emancipated;
founders of religion for the many, humanity at large. For [Greek:
philosophon plaethos adynaton einai], as your friend Plato has said, and
you should not forget it. Religion is the metaphysics of the people,
which by all means they must keep; and hence it must be eternally
respected, for to discredit it means taking it away. Just as there is
popular poetry, popular wisdom in proverbs, so too there must be popular
metaphysics; for mankind requires most certainly _an interpretation of
life_, and it must be in keeping with its power of comprehension. So
that this interpretation is at all times an allegorical investiture of
the truth, and it fulfils, as far as practical life and our feelings are
concerned--that is to say, as a guidance in our affairs, and as a
comfort and consolation in suffering and death--perhaps just as much as
truth itself could, if we possessed it. Don't be hurt at its unpolished,
baroque, and apparently absurd form, for you, with your education and
learning, cannot imagine the roundabout ways that must be used in order
to make people in their crude state understand deep truths. The various
religions are only various forms in which the people grasp and
understand the truth, which in itself they could not grasp, and which is
inseparable from these forms. Therefore, my dear fellow, don't be
displeased if I tell you that to ridicule these forms is both
narrow-minded and unjust.

_Phil._ But is it not equally narrow-minded and unjust to require that
there shall be no other metaphysics but thi