robably on this account that
the multitude is so inured to vice, because it takes pleasure only in
the element of ill-will and evil speech; he who indulges in this, soon
becomes indifferent to God, contemptuous toward the world, and a hater
of his fellows; but the true, genuine, indispensable feeling of
self-respect is ruined in conceit and presumption."

"Allow me, nevertheless," Wilhelm went on, "to make one objection: Has
it not ever been held that the fear evinced by savage nations in the
presence of mighty natural phenomena, and other inexplicable foreboding
events, is the germ from which a higher feeling, a purer disposition,
should gradually be developed?"

To this the other replied: "Fear, no doubt, is consonant with nature,
but not reverence; people fear a known or unknown powerful being; the
strong one tries to grapple with it, the weak to avoid it; both wish to
get rid of it, and feel happy when in a short space they have conquered
it, when their nature in some measure has regained its freedom and
independence. The natural man repeats this operation a million times
during his life; from fear he strives after liberty, from liberty he is
driven back into fear, and does not advance one step further. To fear is
easy, but unpleasant; to entertain reverence is difficult but pleasing.
Man determines himself unwillingly to reverence, or rather never
determines himself to it; it is a loftier sense which must be imparted
to his nature, and which is self-developed only in the most
exceptionally gifted ones, whom therefore from all time we have regarded
as saints, as gods. In this consists the dignity, in this the function
of all genuine religions, of which also there exist only three,
according to the objects toward which they direct their worship."

The men paused. Wilhelm remained silent for awhile in thought; as he did
not feel himself equal to pointing these strange words, he begged the
worthy men to continue their remarks, which too they at once consented
to do.

"No religion," they said, "which is based on fear, is esteemed among us.
With the reverence which a man allows himself to entertain, whilst he
accords honor, he may preserve his own honor; he is not at discord with
himself, as in the other case. The religion which rests on reverence for
that which is above us, we call the ethnical one; it is the religion of
nations, and the first happy redemption from a base fear; all so-called
heathen religions are of