If we once grant that the criterion of truth, which ought to be intrinsic evidence deriving from first principles, lies instead in external acceptance by a majority, then we condemn reason to atrophy, to dullness, to self-abdication. Man learns to get along without mental exertion. He lives on a plane of neutral persuasion, led by public rumour. Reason is looked upon as incapable of finding the truth. We might be inclined to trace this abdication to a laudable humility. But, judged by its fruits, it engenders philosophic scepticism, conscious or unconscious, in an atmosphere ruled by mystic sentimentalism and hollow faith.
Cardinal Villeneuve, Archbishop of Quebec to the Thomistic Conference in Ottawa (1936), quoted in Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Reality 54
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