Horus, or the Astrognostic Final Judgment

VIII Preface.

...declaim doctrines, much less are they permitted to make unauthorized changes to them, even if they recognize many things as false. No single man at all can or may make changes in matters of religion: for he alone can easily err, and with his innovations do more harm than good, since they affect the whole too much, and consequently damage the whole if they are harmful. Only the wisest of whole nations taken together, not individually, can perhaps gradually effect changes to old harmful customs—which are nonetheless sacred to the people—with good success. Without so-called revealed religion religion based on divine revelation (like the Bible) rather than just human reason, the man who does not think for himself cannot survive; and his mysterious little sayings original: "geheimnißvollen Sprüchelchen"; likely referring to the rote memorization of the catechism or dogmatic formulas, which he learns by heart as a boy without understanding any of it, he cannot easily exchange in old age for others which he must learn anew and perhaps also does not understand.

Rational school instruction in the lower classes, and in small towns or in villages, will therefore likely remain the best means for the cultivation of rational-thinking, good people. Thus, teachers of the people referring to local clergy and schoolmasters responsible for the moral education of the public can also read my book without hesitation. If they seek truth and use their reason for good, they will know how to use the truth with wisdom, like men who look to the well-being of the whole. But if they do not seek truth, if they have renounced the use of their reason, and if they consider rational doubt to be a sin, then my book cannot harm them in any case, because it merely