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 .326 ESSAYS AND LEITERS

its trace. It is natural for such a man, having freed himself from the hypnotism of this deceit, and hating the falsehood from which he has just escaped, to adopt the view advocated by advanced men, and to regard every religion as an obstacle in the path along which humanity is progressing. And having adopted that opinion, such a man becomes, like his teachers, devoid of principle — that is, devoid of conscience, and guided in life merely by his desires. Nor does he condemn him- self for this, but he considers that it places him on the highest plane of mental development attainable bj^ man.

That is what may happen with men of strong minds. The less strong, though they may be roused to doubts, will never completely free themselves from the decep- tion in which they were brought up ; but adopting or inventing various cunningly-devised, cloudy theories to justify the absurd dogmas they have accepted, and living in a sphere of doubts, mist, sophistries and sell- deception, they will co-operate in the mystification of the masses and oppose their enlightenment.

But the majority of men, having neither the strength nor the opportunity to struggle against the hypnotism exercised over them, will live and die generation after generation, as they now do — deprived of man's highest welfare, which is a truly religious understanding of life — and will remain docile tools of the classes that rule over them and deceive them.

And it is this terrible deception that advanced and learned men consider unimportant, and not worth directly attacking. The only explanation of such an assertion, if those who make it are sincere, is, that they are themselves under the hypnotism of a false science ; but if they are not sincere, then their conduct is ex- plained by the fact that an attack on established beliefs is unprofitable and often dangerous. In any case, one way or another, the assertion that the profession of a false religion does no harm — or though harmful is un- important — and that one can therefore disseminate enlightenment without destroying religious deception, is quite untrue.