It will be seen that I entirely dissociate myself from those who want the ‘clerk’ to govern the world, and who wish with Renan for the ‘reign of the philosophers’; for it seems to me that human affairs can only adopt the religions of the true ‘clerk’ under penalty of becoming divine, i.e. of perishing as human. This has been clearly seen by all lovers of the divine who did not desire the destruction of what is human. This is marvellously expressed by one of them when he makes Jesus say so profoundly to His disciple: ‘My son, I must not give you a clear idea of your substance ... for if you saw clearly what you are, you could no longer remain so closely united to your body. You would no longer watch over the preservation of your life.’[169] But though I think it a bad thing that the ‘clerk’s’ religion should possess the lay world, I think it still more to be dreaded that it should not be preached to the layman at all, and that he should thus be allowed to yield to his practical passions without the least shame or the least, even hypocritical, desire to raise himself however slightly above them. ‘There are a few just men who prevent me from sleeping’--that was what the realist said of the teachers of old. Nietzsche, Barrès, and Sorel do not prevent any realist from sleeping; on the contrary. This is the novelty I want to point out, which to me seems so serious. It seems to me serious that a humanity, which is more than ever obsessed by the passions of the world, should receive from its spiritual leaders the command: ‘remain faithful to the earth.’