re, 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