This is particularly characteristic of the half-truths of science, the most terrible scourge of humanity, unknown till this century, and worse than plague, famine, or war. A half-truth is a despot⁠ ⁠… such as has never been in the world before. A despot that has its priests and its slaves, a despot to whom all do homage with love and superstition hitherto inconceivable, before which science itself trembles and cringes in a shameful way. These are your own words, Stavrogin, all except that about the half-truth; that’s my own because I am myself a case of half-knowledge, and that’s why I hate it particularly. I haven’t altered anything of your ideas or even of your words, not a syllable.”

“I don’t agree that you’ve not altered anything,” Stavrogin observed cautiously. “You accepted them with ardour, and in your ardour have transformed them unconsciously. The very fact that you reduce God to a simple attribute of nationality⁠ ⁠…”

He suddenly began watching Shatov with intense and peculiar attention, not so much his words as himself.