Well, then, have not forgotten our conversation of to-day ?' 'Forgotten!' 'I confessed to you that those deities for whom smoke so many altars were but inventions.

I confessed to you that our rites and ceremonies were but mummeries, to delude and lure the herd to their proper good.

I explained to you that from those delusions came the bonds of society, the harmony of the world, the power of the wise; that power is in the obedience of the vulgar.

Continue we then these salutary delusions--if man must have some belief, continue to him that which his fathers have made dear to him, and which custom sanctifies and strengthens.

In seeking a subtler faith for us, whose senses are too spiritual for the gross one, let us leave others that support which crumbles from ourselves.