Apesar das ideias preconcebidas

“Tocqueville’s attitude to religion appears to have been, on the whole, utilitarian: it is a social cement, a safety valve for passions that might otherwise feed a revolutionary torrent dangerous to individual liberty; it is a proper channel for natural passions, which, however, it must not be allowed to dam up too strongly: a mildly Erastian position, somewhere between Spinoza and Durkheim, a purely pragmatic or ethical approach with a grasp of the role of social myths”.

Isaiah Berlin, “The Thought of de Tocqueville” (1965)