Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired: for in the course of things, men always grow vicious before they become unbelievers; but if you would once convince the town or country profligate, by topics drawn from the view of their own quiet reputation, health, and advantage, their infidelity would soon drop off: This I confess is no easy task, because it is almost in a literal sense, to fight with beasts.
-- Jonathan Swift (1667 - 1745), Anglo-Irish writer and satirist, Letter to a Young Clergyman (9 January 1720), on proving Christianity to unbelievers
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