If any one wants to criticise religion he should always bear in mind the nature of the great masses for which it is destined, and picture to himself their complete moral and intellectual inferiority. It is incredible how far this inferiority goes and how steadily a spark of truth will continue to glimmer even under the crudest veiling of monstrous fables and grotesque ceremonies, adhering indelibly, like the perfume of musk, to everything which has come in contact with it. As an illustration of this, look at the profound wisdom which is revealed in the Upanishads, and then look at the mad idolatry in the India of to-day, as is revealed in its pilgrimages, processions, and festivities, or at the mad and ludicrous doings of the Saniassi of the present time. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that in all this madness and absurdity there yet lies something that is hidden from view, something that is in accordance with, or a reflection of the profound wisdom that has been mentioned. It requires this kind of dressing-up for the great brute masses. In this antithesis we have before us the two poles of humanity:--the wisdom of the individual and the bestiality of the masses, both of which, however, find their point of harmony in the moral kingdom. Who has not thought of the saying from the Kurral--"Vulgar people look like men; but I have never seen anything like them." The more highly cultured man may always explain religion to himself _cum grano salis_; the man of learning, the thoughtful mind, may, in secret, exchange it for a philosophy. And yet _one_ philosophy would not do for everybody; each philosophy by the laws of affinity attracts a public to whose education and mental capacities it is fitted. So there is always an inferior metaphysical system of the schools for the educated plebeians, and a higher system for the _élite_. Kant's lofty doctrine, for example, was degraded to meet the requirements of the schools, and ruined by Fries, Krug, Salat, and similar people. In short, Goethe's dictum is as applicable here as anywhere: _One does not suit all_. Pure belief in revelation and pure metaphysics are for the two extremes; and for the intermediate steps mutual modifications of both in countless combinations and gradations. The immeasurable differences which nature and education place between men have made this necessary.