“There is a thought that stops thought.  That is the only thought that ought to be stopped.  That is the ultimate evil against which all religious authority was aimed.  It only appears at the end of decadent ages like our own ....

“Man, by a blind instinct, knew that if once things were wildly questioned, reason could be questioned first ....

“We know now that this is so; we have no excuse for not knowing it.  For we can hear scepticism crashing through the old ring of authorities, and at the same moment we can see reason swaying upon her throne.  In so far as religion is gone, reason is going.  For they are both of the same primary and authoritative kind. They are both methods of proof which cannot themselves be proved. And in the act of destroying the idea of Divine authority we have largely destroyed the idea of that human authority by which we do a long-division sum. With a long and sustained tug we have attempted to pull the mitre off pontifical man; and his head has come off with it.”

-- G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, Chapter 3