Page 212 - erewhon

Besides, people have such a strong natural bias towards it
that they will seek it for themselves and act upon it quite
as much as or more than is good for them: there is no need
of encouraging reason. With unreason the case is different.
She is the natural complement of reason, without whose ex-
istence reason itself were non-existent.
If, then, reason would be non-existent were there no
such thing as unreason, surely it follows that the more un-
reason there is, the more reason there must be also? Hence
the necessity for the development of unreason, even in the
interests of reason herself. The Professors of Unreason deny
that they undervalue reason: none can be more convinced
than they are, that if the double currency cannot be rigor-
ously deduced as a necessary consequence of human reason,
the double currency should cease forthwith; but they say
that it must be deduced from no narrow and exclusive view
of reason which should deprive that admirable faculty of
the one-half of its own existence. Unreason is a part of rea-
son; it must therefore be allowed its full share in stating the
initial conditions.

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