_Phil._ This point of view reminds me seriously of the mysteries of the
ancients which you have already mentioned; their aim at bottom seems to
have lain in remedying the evil arising out of the differences of mental
capacities and education. Their plan was to single out of the great
multitude a few people, to whom the unveiled truth was absolutely
incomprehensible, and to reveal the truth to them up to a certain point;
then out of these they singled out others to whom they revealed more, as
they were able to grasp more; and so on up to the Epopts. And so we got
μικρα, και μειζονα, και μεγιστα μυστηρια. The plan was based on a
correct knowledge of the intellectual inequality of mankind.
_Demop_. To a certain extent the education in our lower, middle, and
high schools represents the different forms of initiation into the
mysteries.
_Phil_. Only in a very approximate way, and this only in so far as
subjects of higher knowledge were written about exclusively in Latin.
But since that has ceased to be so all the mysteries are profaned.
_Demop_. However that may be, I wish to remind you, in speaking of
religion, that you should grasp it more from the practical and less from
the theoretical side. Personified metaphysics may be religion's enemy,
yet personified morality will be its friend. Perhaps the metaphysics in
all religions is false; but the morality in all is true. This is to be
surmised from the fact that in their metaphysics they contradict each
other, while in their morality they agree.
_Phil_. Which furnishes us with a proof of the rule of logic, that a
true conclusion may follow from false premises.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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