Men on a lower level of understanding, when brought into contact with phenomena of a higher order, instead of making efforts to understand them, to raise themselves up to the point of view from which they must look at the subject, judge it from their lower standpoint, and the less they understand what they are talking about, the more confidently and unhesitatingly they pass judgment on it.
 Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God Is Within You (1894). copy citation

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Author Leo Tolstoy
Source The Kingdom of God Is Within You
Topic understanding judgment
Date 1894
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by Constance Garnett
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4602/pg4602-images.html

Context

“Reducing it to its dogmatic side only—to the doctrines of the Trinity, the redemption, the miracles, the Church, the sacraments, and so on—men of science regard it as only one of an immense number of religions which have arisen among mankind, and now, they say, having played out its part in history, it is outliving its own age and fading away before the light of science and of true enlightenment. We come here upon what, in a large proportion of cases, forms the source of the grossest errors of mankind. Men on a lower level of understanding, when brought into contact with phenomena of a higher order, instead of making efforts to understand them, to raise themselves up to the point of view from which they must look at the subject, judge it from their lower standpoint, and the less they understand what they are talking about, the more confidently and unhesitatingly they pass judgment on it. To the majority of learned then, looking at the living, moral teaching of Christ from the lower standpoint of the conception of life, this doctrine appears as nothing but very indefinite and incongruous combination of Indian asceticism, Stoic and Neoplatonic philosophy, and insubstantial anti-social visions, which have no serious significance for our times.” source