acceptance of the drama- tist's suggestions is singularly increased by the attention and the interest of the society in which he finds himself. But in this case we have a society just the size of the hall, and enduring only just as long as the play lasts: what if the individual belief is supported, confirmed by a whole people, and if it rests both on the past and on the present? What if the god is sung by poets, if he dwells in temples, if he is portrayed by art? So long as experimental science is not firmly established, there will be no surer guarantee of the truth than universal assent. Nay, truth will as a rule be this very assent. We may note, by the way, that this is one of the causes of intolerance. The man who does not accept the common belief prevents it, while he dissents, from being ii ON THE EXISTENCE OF GODS 169 utterly true. Truth will only regain its entirety if he retracts or disappears. We do not mean to say that religious belief can never have been, even in polytheism, an individual belief. Each Roman had a genius attached to his person; but he only believed so firmly in his genius because every other Roman had his own genius, and because his faith, personal on this point, was guaranteed to him by a universal faith. We do not mean to say either that religion has ever been social in essence rather than