...So I cannot perceive, and must protest against the practical aims and necessity of religion in the sense which you have indicated, and in such general favour to-day, namely, as an indispensable foundation of all legislative regulations. For from such a standpoint the pure and sacred striving after light and truth, to say the least, would seem quixotic and criminal if it should ven-ture in its feeling of justice to denounce the authorita-tive belief as a usurper who has taken possession of the throne of truth and maintained it by continuing the deception...