Frequently, along with this belief in the omnipotence of the religious sentiment, there goes a certain contempt for those who are the victims of it; they are the serfs of thought, they must remain attached to the soil, bound within the limits of their own narrow horizon. The aristocracy of science is the most jealous of aristocracies, and a certain number of our contemporary men of science are bent on carrying their coat of mail in their brain. They profess toward the mass of the people a somewhat contemptuous charity, and propose to leave it undisturbed in its beliefs, immersed in prejudice as being the sole habitat in which it is capable of existing. For the rest, they sometimes envy the people its eternal ignorance, platonically of course. The bird no doubt possesses vague regrets, vague desires, when he perceives from on high a worm trailing tranquilly through the dew, oblivious of heaven; but the bird, as a matter of fact, is always careful to retain his wings, and our superior men of science do the same. In their judgment, certain superior minds are capable of enfranchising themselves from religion, without evil results following; the mass of the people cannot. It is necessary to reserve freedom of conscience and free-thought for a certain select few; the intellectual aristocracy should defend itself by a fortified camp. Just as the ancient Roman people demanded bread and spectacles, so modern people demand temples, and to give them temples is sometimes the sole means of making them forget that they have not enough bread. The mass of humanity must, as a mere necessity of existence, adore a god, and not simply god in general, but a certain God whose commandments are to be found in a pocket Bible. A sacred book, _that_ is what is necessary. We are reminded of Mr. Spencer’s saying, that the superstition of the present day is the superstition of the printed page; we believe that some mystical virtue inheres in the four and twenty letters of the alphabet. When a child asks questions concerning the birth of his younger brother, he is told that one found him under a bush in the garden; and the child is content. The mass of the people is a big child simply, and must be dealt with after the same fashion. When the mass of the people asks questions about the origin of the world, hand it the Bible—it will there see that the world was made by a determinate Being, who carefully adjusted its parts to each other; it will learn the precise amount of time that was consumed in the work; seven days, neither more nor less; and it needs learn nothing further. Its mind is walled in by a good solid barrier which it is forbidden to overleap even by a look—the wall of faith. Its brain is carefully sealed, the sutures become firm with age, and there is nothing to do but to begin the same thing over again with the next generation.