In my opinion, ecclesiastical authorities should have little or nothing to do with the running of a decent, just society. It is all very well for Religion to be the leaven of society; but Ecclesiastical Courts have generally ended up a disgrace. The most blatant example was the Inquisition. It is hardly an accident that the composer Verdi should have portrayed the clergy, in his operas Aida and Don Carlos, as the most reactionary, stupid and cruel class in society. And Gibbon in his Decline and Fall accuses the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands of religious persecution on a scale and with a cruelty that vastly exceeded the relatively modest persecutions of the Roman Emperors. It is best to keep religious ideas out of politics; and that may include local politics. Particularly the religious idea that all men are equal. We are not all equal; we are not all the equal of Jesus, or Pericles; we are all unequal. Equality before the law is different. In practice that is what you want; not theories that we are all alike.
The third thing to grasp about the God-World-I Triangle is that religions are not noted for their tolerance of others whose opinions are different from their own; so their contribution to the God-World side of the Triangle today is of negligible benefit. Emmerich de Vattel (1714-1767) proposed in his Rules to prevent warfare getting completely out of hand that one should always credit one’s enemy with having a just cause. Unless you do this, there is no prospect of a negotiated peace; and War must be stone-age tribal war to the bitter end. This was forgotten in the world wars of the 20th century, partly because they were democratic wars, and the fury of the populations had been aroused. Partly because no-one was prepared to negotiate with Hitler, or his henchmen, or with those who had put him into power. But I think with atomic weapons fairly widely distributed, it is wiser to remember the Rule. This surely means that ecclesiastics of any and every religion are best kept out of world decision making; their influence would only be malign, either promoting conflict with an aggressive faith, or promoting conflict by an abjectly supine lack of will. As I have never been involved in politics in any way, the opinions I express in public can only be those of the man-in-the-street. Yet Pericles, who was wiser and more experienced than Jesus in matters of state, considered it the highest privilege, I understand, and the highest duty of the citizen to take part in the proper administration and conduct of the state. Of course, none of us is the equal of Pericles, any more than we are the equal of Jesus. But I can at least say that anyone who has the vote would be well advised to read history, unless he is content that we should all slither into an atomic war, through his failure to recognise the seriousness of the issues involved, or see the other side’s point of view. But I have to leave it there.
In my original Appendix, I wrote that I had opened a door, and was stepping through the door to admire the scenery beyond, but was incapable of going further. That is correct. My life and writings are only a beginning, one of many necessary beginnings, to overcome the ignorance and inadequacy of the clergy during the last two thousand years. By ignorance, I mean their refusal to search for truth, as opposed to orthodoxy, particularly scientific truth; and by inadequacy I mean their claim that the life and teaching of Jesus contained all the knowledge and wisdom necessary for salvation, when even he, in the Last Discourses, admitted that much more was needed. In this Postscript, I am admitting the inadequacy of my writing, by pointing out that one has much to learn from one’s country’s enemies; their thought may have produced symbolism far superior to one’s own. And one should be modest enough to admit it. And my ignorance is only too obvious. So I am not attempting, in this Postscript, to add to what I have already written, but pointing out its grave limitations. The lives and writings of many others are necessary to take things a stage further.