This page needs to be proofread.
CHAPTER IX.
Relation between Superstition and Atheism: Atheism an intellectua error: Superstition an error involving the passions: the De Superstitione—Moral fervour of Plutarch's attack on Superstition—His comparative tolerance of Atheism—The greatest safeguard against both alike consists in an intellectual appreciation of the Truth—The De Iside et Osiride—The Unity underlying national differences of religious belief.
"The profoundest, the most essential and paramount theme of human interest," says Goethe, "is the eternal conflict between Atheism and Superstition."[1] Plutarch's tract, "De Superstitione," is a classical sermon on this text, although in his presentment of the subject the mutual antagonism of the two principles receives less emphasis than the hostility which both alike direct against the interests of true Religion. He has no sympathy with any notion similar to that current since his days, in many religious minds, that Superstition is but a mistaken form of Piety, deserving tenderness rather than reprehension, and he maintains that absolute disbelief in God is less mischievous in its effects upon human conduct and character than its
- ↑ "Das eigentlich einzige und tiefste Thema der Welt- und Menschengeschichte, dem alle übrigen untergeordnet sind, bleibt der Conflict des Unglaubens und des Aberglaubens."—Goethe, Westöstlicher Divan (quoted by Tholuck).
