"Let our meaning be quite clear; we have no intention of blaming practical tolerance as applied to individuals, but only theoretic tolerance, which claims to be applied to ideas as well and to recognise the same rights for them all, which if taken logically can only imply a rooted scepticism. Moreover we cannot help noticing that, like all propagandists, the apostles of tolerance, truth to tell, are very often the most intolerant of men. This is what has in fact happened, and it is strangely ironical : those who wished to overthrow all dogma have created for their own use, we will not say a new dogma, but a caricature of dogma, which they have succeeded in imposing on the western world in general; in this way there have been established, under the pretext of "freedom of thought," the most chimerical beliefs that have ever been seen at any time, under the form of these different idols, of which we have just singled out some of the more important.Of all the superstitions preached by those very people who profess that they never stop inveighing against "superstition," that of "science " and "reason", is the only one which does not seem, at first sight, to be based on sentiment; but there is a kind of rationalism which is nothing more than sentimentalism disguised, as is shown only too well by the passion with which its champions uphold it, and by the hatred which they evince for whatever goes against their inclinations or passes their comprehension, Besides, since rationalism, in any case, corresponds to a lessening of intellectuality, it is natural that its development should go hand in hand with that of sentimentalism..."
- East and West, p.48
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