breaking it before it is a week old, they destroy all its
authority with their subjects, and so break the weapon they have
forged to rule them for their own good. They must therefore
maintain at all costs the sanctity of the law, even when it has
ceased to represent their thought; so that at last they get
entangled in a network of ordinances which they no longer believe
in, and yet have made so sacred by custom and so terrible by
punishment, that they cannot themselves escape from them. Thus
Godhead's resort to law finally costs it half its integrity--as
if a spiritual king, to gain temporal power, had plucked out one
of his eyes--and it finally begins secretly to long for the
advent of some power higher than itself which will destroy its
artificial empire of law, and establish a true republic of free
thought.

This is by no means the only difficulty in the dominion of Law.
The brute force for its execution must be purchased; and the mass
of its subjects must be persuaded to respect the authority which
employs this force. But how is such respect to be implanted in
them if they are unable to comprehend the thought of the
lawgiver? Clearly, only by associating the legislative power with
such displays of splendor and majesty as will impress their
senses and awe their imaginations. The god turned lawgiver, in
short, must be crowned Pontiff and King. Since he cannot be known
to the common folk as their superior in wisdom, he must be known
to them as their superior in riches, as the dweller in castles,
the wearer of gold and purple, the eater of mighty feasts, the
commander of armies, and the wielder of powers of life and death,
of salvation and damnation after death. Something may be done in
this way without corruption whilst the golden age still endures.