In the first case the road is open and I can go as far as I like; in the second the road is shut.

But the case is even stronger, and the parallel with madness is yet more strange.

For it was our case against the exhaustive and logical theory of the lunatic that, right or wrong, it gradually destroyed his humanity.

Now it is the charge against the main deductions of the materialist that, right or wrong, they gradually destroy his humanity; I do not mean only kindness, I mean hope, courage, poetry, initiative, all that is human.

For instance, when materialism leads men to complete fatalism (as it generally does), it is quite idle to pretend that it is in any sense a liberating force.