The State is a product of religion. "In all lands it is born of a marriage of violence, robbery, spoliation,--in short, of war and conquest,--with the gods whom the religious enthusiasm of the nations had gradually created."[356] "He who speaks of revelation speaks thereby of revealers enlightened by God, of Messiahs, prophets, priests, and lawgivers; and, if once these are recognized on earth as representatives of the Deity, as sacred teachers of mankind chosen by God himself, then of course they have unlimited authority. All men owe them blind obedience; for no human reason, no human justice, is valid against the divine reason and justice. As slaves of God, men must be also slaves of the Church, and of the State so far as the Church hallows the State."[357] "No State is without religion, and none can be without religion. Take the freest States in the world,--for instance, the United States of America or the Swiss Confederacy,--and see what an important part divine providence plays in all public utterances there."[358] "It is not without good reason that governments hold the belief in God to be an essential condition of their power."[359] "There is a class of people who, even if they do not believe, must necessarily act as if they believed. This class embraces all mankind's tormentors, oppressors, and exploiters. Priests, monarchs, statesmen, soldiers, financiers, office-holders of all sorts; policemen, _gendarmes_, jailers, and executioners; capitalists, usurers, heads of business, and house-owners; lawyers, economists, politicians of all shades,--all of them, down to the smallest grocer, will always repeat in chorus the words of Voltaire, that, if there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him; 'for must not the populace have its religion?' It is the very safety-valve."[360] 2. The characteristics of the State correspond to the low stage of evolution to which it belongs. The State enslaves the governed. "The State is force; nay, it is the silly parading of force. It does not propose to win love or to make converts; if it puts its finger into anything, it does so only in an unfriendly way; for its essence consists not in persuasion, but in command and compulsion. However much pains it may take, it cannot conceal the fact that it is the legal maimer of our will, the constant negation of our liberty. Even when it commands the good, it makes this valueless by commanding it; for every command slaps liberty in the face; as soon as the good is commanded, it is transformed into the evil in the eyes of true (that is, human, by no means divine) morality, of the dignity of man, of liberty; for man's liberty, morality, and dignity consist precisely in doing the good not because he is commanded to but because he recognizes it, wills it, and loves it."[361]