A religionist may be an enthusiast, and imagine he sees what has no reality
 David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748). copy citation

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Author David Hume
Source An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Topic reality
Date 1748
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/9662/9662-h/9662-h.htm

Context

“With what greediness are the miraculous accounts of travellers received, their descriptions of sea and land monsters, their relations of wonderful adventures, strange men, and uncouth manners? But if the spirit of religion join itself to the love of wonder, there is an end of common sense; and human testimony, in these circumstances, loses all pretensions to authority. A religionist may be an enthusiast, and imagine he sees what has no reality: he may know his narrative to be false, and yet persevere in it, with the best intentions in the world, for the sake of promoting so holy a cause: or even where this delusion has not place, vanity, excited by so strong a temptation, operates on him more powerfully than on the rest of mankind in any other circumstances;” source