Note 166 — Chapter VI · DIONYSUS THE MAN
Reading edition
As an instance of this, how many people, I should like to know, have ever tried to divorce from the idea of Heaven and an after-life the pleasant and comforting thoughts which cluster round it, and then proceeded to question honestly and searchingly whether it can possibly be true. Are not the pleasant associations of the thought responsible for three-quarters of the bias in its favour? Let the reader by way of experiment tell his circle of friends a truth either about humanity or about the world which is distinctly unpleasant. He will find that more than half the incredulity he encounters, particularly among smug sentimental women, will not be based upon an impartial examination of his evidence for the unpleasant truth, but upon the unpleasantness of the truth itself. If he would like a truth to experiment with, I recommend him to tell his middle-aged spinster-friends some of the truths discovered by psycho-analysis.