No matter how deeply it [a faith based on mere authority] entrenches itself behind authority, no matter how artfully it seeks to ward off all counter… - Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

" "

No matter how deeply it [a faith based on mere authority] entrenches itself behind authority, no matter how artfully it seeks to ward off all counter-hypotheses and alternative possibilities by assembling a system that covers every conceivable circumstance . . . , reason will still venture to subject it to critical scrutiny. And it will do so spontaneously [aus sich selbst], generating from within itself principles of possibility and plausibility irrespective of any such artificial historical structure predisposed to neglect reason and to claim primacy on historical grounds over the persuasiveness of rational truths.