"If Horace had had to combat the hydra-headed monster of superstition, he would have written as I have written—for all the world."
"It seems to me that you might spare yourself the trouble of combating what you will never destroy."
"That which I cannot finish others will, and I shall always have the glory of being the first in the field."
"Very good; but supposing you succeed in destroying superstition, what are you going to put in its place?"
"I like that. If I deliver the race of man from a wild beast which is devouring it, am I to be asked what I intend to put in its place?"
"It does not devour it; on the contrary, it is necessary to its existence."
"Necessary to its existence! That is a horrible blasphemy, the falsity of which will be seen in the future. I love the human race; I would fain see men like myself, free and happy, and superstition and freedom cannot go together. Where do you find an enslaved and yet a happy people?"
"You wish, then, to see the people sovereign?"
"God forbid! There must be a sovereign to govern the masses."
"In that case you must have superstition, for without it the masses will never obey a mere man decked with the name of monarch."