"There have been Hebraism, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, Christianity, the worship of Isis and Osiris, the worship of the Bull, the Cat, the Snake, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the Phallus; there have been prophets without number and martyrs more than I can say, saints for every day in the year and more, and none of them has saved the world. More than that, I will go so far as to say that none of them has done as much to raise the standard of living as money." "Damn it all," said the fish buyer, "I'm not talking about superstitions. I'm talking about ideas." "Money also is an idea," replied Old Mole, "and it is as generally misunderstood as any other." He was beginning to be rather excited, for he felt that he was getting the better of the argument, and would not allow himself to see that he had floundered on to the debater's trick of shunting his opponents on to unfamiliar country. They had gone up and down one stretch of line, between two points--capitalism and labor--for so long, without looking on either side of them, that it needed only a very slight adjustment or transposition of terms to reduce them to a beating of the void. They clung to their point, and the postman at last said triumphantly: "But money isn't a religion; Socialism is--the religion, the only religion of the working classes of this country. They've had enough of the next world; they want a bit o' this for a change." "So do I," returned Old Mole, "all of it. I say that money is an idea, perhaps the only practicable idea in the world at present. It isn't a religious idea simply because men as a whole are not religious. It has the advantage over your Socialism that it is a part of life as it is, while your religion, as you call it, is only a straining after the future life, an edifice without a foundation, for to bring about its realization you have to hew and cut and shape human nature to fit into the conditions of your fantasy. If I wanted to be a prophet, which I don't--I should base my vision on money. There would be some chance then of everybody understanding it and really taking it into his life. If you could make money a religious idea--that is, make money a thing which men would respect and revere and abuse as little as possible--you would very likely produce something--deeds, not words and questions." "Don't you call the strike 'doing something'?" cried the fish buyer. "We shall see," replied Old Mole. The postman filled his cutty and laughed: "Don't you see," he said to the fish buyer, "that he is pulling your leg?" So, convinced of their superiority, they abandoned the discussion.