The other circumstance which calls for a real progress in philosophy, is the steady growth of unbelief in the face of all the hypocritical dissembling and the outward conformity to the Church. This unbelief necessarily and unavoidably goes hand in hand with the growing expansion of empirical and historical knowledge. It threatens to destroy not only the form, but even the spirit of Christianity (a spirit which has a much wider reach than Christianity itself), and to deliver up mankind to _moral_ materialism--a thing even more dangerous than the chemical materialism already mentioned. And nothing plays more into the hands of this unbelief, than the Tartuffianism _de rigueur_ impudently flaunting itself everywhere just now, whose clumsy disciples, fee in hand, hold forth with such unction and emphasis, that their voices penetrate even into learned, critical reviews issued by Academies and Universities, and into physiological as well as philosophical books, where however, being quite in their wrong place, they only damage their own cause by rousing indignation.[169] Under such circumstances as these, it is gratifying to see the public betray an interest in philosophy. [169] They ought everywhere to be shown that their belief is not believed in. [Add. to 3rd ed.] I have nevertheless one sad piece of news to communicate to our professors of philosophy. Their Caspar Hauser (according to Dorguth) whom they had so carefully secreted, so securely walled up for nearly forty years, that no sound could betray his existence to the world--their Caspar Hauser--I say, has escaped! He has escaped and is running about in the world;--some even say he is a prince. In plain language, the misfortune they feared more than anything has come to pass after all. In spite of their having done their best to prevent it for more than a generation by acting with united force, with rare constancy, secreting and ignoring to a degree that is without example, my books are beginning and henceforth will continue to be read. _Legor et legar_: there is no help for it. This is really dreadful and most inopportune; nay, it is a positive fatality, not to say calamity. Is this the recompense for all their faithful, snug secrecy; for having held so firmly and unitedly together? Poor time-servers! What becomes of Horace's assurance:-- "Est et fideli tuta silentio Merces,----?"