I cannot help remarking how much less confidence professed Christians appear to have in the truth and power of their principles than infidels generally have in theirs. Disbelievers in Christianity almost always hail the advance of public intelligence as favourable to them; the more informed and exercised a mind is, the more likely they account it to adopt their opinions; but I cannot find a trace of similar confidence in most of the professedly religious.

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist

“Speech on Secular Education,” undelivered (1849)