The mass of people believe that all which is difficult to understand is deep, but it is not so. What is difficult to understand is immature, vague, and often false. The highest wisdom is simple, clear, and goes through the brain straight into the heart. Set a philosopher on the grave where his earthly hopes lie buried, and let him discourse of Herbert Spencer and the blastoderm! Place a philosopher in the Privy Council, and let him have a share in the conduct of the state! Ask a philosopher to write a drama, to paint a picture, or even to teach school-children, and he is useless. "Philosopher" is synonymous with superannuated donkey! Away with him!
Goethe on the Bible.—Eckermann had bought an English Bible, and when he complained that the Apocryphal books were missing, Goethe said among other things: "It is superfluous to raise the question of authentic or unauthentic in matters of the Bible. I regard the four gospels as completely genuine, for in them shines the reflected splendour of the lofty personality of Christ, as divine as anything which has appeared on earth. If any one asks me whether I find it possible to pay him worship and reverence, I answer, 'Certainly!'"
Then there follows some Voltairian talk about the sun and religious relics, about priestcraft and bishops' incomes, which belonged to the bad tone of the time. These stupid free-thinkers could not imagine how three could be equivalent to one, and therefore they stumbled at the doctrine of the Trinity. Did they not know that three thirds are equivalent to one, and that one is equivalent to three thirds? Or was their reason so darkened by pride? Or did they not know that spiritual things must be spiritually judged; that the Highest cannot be reached by the highest mathematics? For neither Laplace nor Poincaré, who busied themselves with the "Mécanique céleste," reached heaven, much less God.
"Now we Can Fly too! Hurrah!"—A friend of my youth, who two weeks ago died in a distant place, wrote on his last postcard to me these words, "Now we can fly too! Hurrah!" He was a pagan, i.e. an atheist, and this last word "Hurrah!" was an expression of scorn and a threat against heaven.
Every gift of God is regarded by the pagans as a victory over God. They always think that they have made the discovery, and they still build at the Tower of Babel, the truth of whose story they deny, for they are lying spirits.
When the pious Franklin drew down lightning with his damp twine, he trembled and thanked God that He had not killed him. But when the godless physicists imitated Franklin, and wished to store the lightning in laboratory bottles, they were slain. People do indeed make lightning-conductors nowadays, but they are not always efficacious even when the conduction is right. Only imagine!—a man receives a gift, and as a mark of gratitude puts out his tongue! Every time that God gives something, irreligious science celebrates a triumph—that is, puts out its tongue!
That is the nature of science! And it seems as though it were still at present forbidden to touch the tree of knowledge, for the transgression of the prohibition is always accompanied by ingratitude and a curse.
The Fall and Original Sin.—In these times when the ape-morality rules, it is considered up-to-date to change the doctrine of vicarious satisfaction for that of heredity. The blame for our faults is put on our parents, especially, as might be expected, on the father. But when the father was alive, he put the blame on his father, and so on till we come to our first parents. That is indeed just like what the Bible teaches about the Fall and original sin, and ought to confirm the teaching of religion, but of course that cannot be!
That is the doctrine of heredity. But whence comes it? Where is the starting-point? Since everyone nowadays feels burdened with evil impulses and disease germs which he has inherited, and all our predecessors have felt the same, the only thing left is to lay the blame on our first parents.