 Religion, like the other creations of our imagination, can have a powerful influence. The mistake is to confuse such creations with the knowledge that science provides (Lange 1873–75, 3:280). Lange thinks that “the classification of religion with art and metaphysics will at no very distant time be generally conceded”. The “great mass of believers of all religions” are “in a state of mind like that in which children listen to fairy-tales” (Lange 1873–75, 3:281). The coming realization though that these are all fairy tales does not mean that “the sense for poesy” is not important even when we are, so to speak, adults (Lange 1873–75, 3:281). When it comes to “the direction of the impulses towards the general good”, then “mere moral teaching will hardly be likely to produce a frame of mind to which trumpet-peals and hymns are appropriate” (Lange 1873–75, 3:299). We need to set up ideals, indeed “[o]ne thing is certain, that man needs to supplement reality by an ideal world of his own creation”. This ideal world, these myths, are meant to inspire us to be moral and help us overcome “spiritual impoverishment” just as the myths, the ideals, of Christianity can, at their best, inspire us (cf. Kant 1787, A569/B597 and Kant 1793, §17). His model is Schiller’s philosophical poetry (Lange 1873–75, 3:342–44; Lange 1897).