SATNI. The fear of the gods has prevented fewer crimes than were needed to create it. HIGH PRIEST. Be it so. But it exists. SATNI. It is your interest to spread the belief, that the fear of the gods is a restraint. And you know that it is not. You do not leave the punishment of crime to the gods. You have the lash, hard labor in the mines; you have scaffolds, you have executioners. No one believes sincerely in the happy life beyond the grave. If we believed, we should kill ourselves, the sooner to reach the Island of the Souls, the fields of Yalou. HIGH PRIEST. By what then are the appetites restrained? SATNI. By the laws, by the need of the esteem of others-- HIGH PRIEST. We have just seen that, in sooth. So then it was virtue that the people showed yesterday, after you made them break their gods? They seemed to care little for the esteem of others, for they stole, they pillaged, they killed. Do you approve of that? Have they gained your esteem, those who have done what they have done? SATNI. Oh, I know! I know! That is your strongest argument. Creatures degraded by centuries of slavery, drunk with the first hours of freedom, commit crimes. You argue from this, that they were meant for slaves. Yes, it is true that if you take a child from the leading strings that upheld it, the child falls down. But you who watch over it, you rejoice at the fall, for then you can assert that the child must go back to its leading strings--and be kept in them till death. HIGH PRIEST. Then you declare that all supports must be suppressed? [_A pause_] Religion is a prop. It soothes--consoles. He does evil who disturbs it. SATNI. Many religions died before ours. The passing of each caused the sorrows you foresee. Should we then have kept the first, to prevent some suffering? HIGH PRIEST. Ours is yet young, though so old; look in the halls of our temples, behold the countless thank-offerings brought there for prayers that were granted. SATNI. Your temples could not hold the offerings, unthinkable in number, that those whose prayers were not granted might have made, and who none the less prayed as well as the others. HIGH PRIEST. Even unanswered their prayers were recompensed. They had hope, and it is likewise a boon to the poor to promise them welfare in the world to come. SATNI. You promise them welfare in the world to come, to make them forget that all the welfare in this world is yours. HIGH PRIEST. Can you give happiness to all who are on earth? We are more generous than you; at least we give them consolation. SATNI. You make them pay dear for it.