“The chief reason for the continuance of authoritarianism as a method lies not in its psychological appeal. Men who are intellectually lazy or timid will always welcome the appeal to cease thinking for themselves and to believe what they are told to believe. Such men enjoy the freedom from responsibility which their conformity brings. So far from being ashamed of accepting a doctrine on the mere say so of someone, they actually make a virtue out of their weakness, and singing the praise of blind faith, they proceed to persecute those who seek truth for themselves. These people are the natural and hereditary enemies of the philosophers. Between the two groups there can never be peace. The philosopher must regard reason as a sacred thing, and the using of it for the illumination of life as man’s highest duty. He who repudiates this gift and the responsibilities which it brings, and binds himself over to the blind acceptance of authority, has exchanged his birthrights for a mess of slave’s pottage. He may be comfortable, for the search after wisdom often brings sorrow and disillusionment, but his soul’s comfort will have been purchased at the cost of his soul’s honor. Better to raise one’s eyes to the sky and seek humbly for the truth, even though the search results in failure and unhappiness, than to give our beliefs into the keeping of another.
WM. Pepperell Montague”
