Felix Leopold Oswald - Oswald - The Secret of the East or the Origin of the Christian Religion

The right of free inquiry is the first condition of progress, and dogmatists who dispute that right virtually impeach the evidence or the morality of their own dogmas. An exception from that rule may, under certain conditions, be admitted in favor of theological tenets. Unobtrusive mystics
have a right to expound the unknowable after their own fashion. The priests of Isis and the adepts of the Eleusinian Mysteries had the privilege
to veil the secrets of their sacred rites. The discreet Pythagoreans could not be obliged to xplain the bean-law of their master or their reason
for believing in his ghost-stories as firmly as in the evidence of his geometrical theorems. Even nocturnal devil-worshippers may be permitted
to mumble about their altars, if they do not dress them at the expense of their neighbors. But it alters the case, if such creeds become aggressive. The right of secrecy does not pertain to religions that have devastated our earth by a series of murderous wars, that have enforced their anti-natural dogmas by destroying the prosperity of whole nations, and their ghost-dogmas by the torture and slaughter of millions ; religions which, after the loss of their political power, have used all their moral influence to obstruct the progress of freedom and science, to arrogate the education of our children, and to interfere with the recreations of our holidays,— all under the pretext of promoting the propaganda of an infallible revelation.
The votaries of such creeds cannot plead the privileges of the ancient mystics, for the right to investigate their claims has become a social and religious duty. Those who recognize that duty will approve the purpose of the present work.

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