Note 64 — Chapter VII · FALLACIES IN POPULAR ARGUMENTS
Reading edition
The advice of Confucius was to reverence the gods as if they existed,64 but in any case to keep them at a distance, and have as little to do with them as possible; and his advice has been followed. Dr. Smith tells us that the popular instinct has taken at its true value the uncertainty conveyed in the words “as if,” and has embodied them in current sayings which accurately express the state of mind of the mass of the people. Thus:—