There is this characteristic of the vitality of all real attitudes,
that they can be expressed in any number of ways, and are always taking
on new disguises. Everything that is really true is true for all the
reasons of its opponents, as well as for all the reasons of its
supporters. Blasphemy itself is only the underside of holiness; when
Swift said, as a bitter joke, that if Christianity were abolished it
would be a pity, since nobody could swear, he was expressing what is, in
actual truth, one of the strongest arguments for the sanctity and
necessity of the supernatural. It is the argument that without it we
have no superlatives: that without it no one could say "God bless you"
or "God forbid": that the language of lovers would suddenly be bankrupt
with the bankruptcy of theology. And when we find this about a view,
that it is able to express itself, either religiously or sceptically,
either gravely or flippantly, we are certain that it lives
-The English Illustrated Magazine, Volume 29 (1903)
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