It may be thought strange, such being the fact, that I could or would have played the part I did. It might be enough to say Satan had power over me; but I associated with the prophets of “the Newness,” and led on the movement, partly because I did not know what else to do, and partly because I could not endure absolute idleness. I saw indeed the destructive character of my movements, but I cherished a hope that by making things worse, I should prepare the way for making them better. You must demolish, I said, the old edifice, and clear away its rubbish, before you can erect a new, a more beautiful, or a more convenient structure on its site. I accepted, after a manner, the opinions and theories of the Neologists, not because they satisfied me, but because I knew not what else to accept; and, though not true, they might conduct me to truth. The road to the temple of Purity runs through the Bower of Bliss, the path to heaven crosses the devil’s territory, and error is the prodrome of truth. Such were the maxims I adopted, not indeed because I believed them, but because they were convenient, and because I saw not otherwise how to justify myself, or solve the problem of experience. I adhered to my philanthropy, infidelity, and radicalism, not because I loved or believed them, but because I saw nothing true in the principles and reasonings I was accustomed to hear opposed to them. The religious and conservative people I knew, and I supposed them the most enlightened and the least irrational of their class, seemed to believe and retain either too much or too little. On one side they seemed to accept and act on the principles which I and my party professed, and on the other to insist on conclusions which could be logically obtained only from a contradictory set of principles, and which they with one voice condemned as false, mischievous, and leading only to superstition, idolatry, and spiritual thraldom. Their denials struck me as too sweeping for their affirmations, and their affirmations as quite too broad for their denials. I found myself in the unpleasant predicament, either of divinizing humanity, or of embracing a religion which they held to be worse than the rankest infidelity.