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Nordau, Max Simon, 1849-1923

"The Malady of the Century"

The theology of the
Vatican would not find a hitch in your system."
"Forgive me, doctor," answered Dorfling. "I see a great difference
between my system and Christianity. Both of them hold that life is a
misery, and death is the deliverance. But Christianity does not
explain why God creates men, and sends them to the misery of earth,
instead of leaving them in peace in heaven. I, on the contrary,
claim that I explain the creation of living and conscious beings."
"Your assertion then means that the eternal principle of phenomena
creates organisms, with the object of arriving at the consciousness
of itself?"
"Exactly."
"Now, we have already answered you as to that," said Schrotter, "and
I will not keep back my objection any longer. Let me get away for a
moment from your system, and say that between metaphysics and
theology I do not see the least difference. A metaphysical system
and a religious dogma are both attempts to explain the
incomprehensible secret to human reason. The negro solves the riddle
of the musical-box, believing that a spirit is inside it, which
gives forth musical sounds at the white man's command; and that is
precisely what priests and philosophers do when they explain the
great workings of the universe by a God, or a principle, or whatever
they call their fetich.


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