“We cannot credit our enjoyment of a flower or of the atmosphere of a room to an autonomous esthetic instinct. Man’s esthetic responsiveness relates in its prehistory to various forms of idolatry; his belief in the goodness or sacredness of a thing precedes his enjoyment of its beauty. The applies no less to such concepts as freedom and humanity.”

Die Fackel no. 406/12 (5 October 1915)
Die Fackel

Source: Learning the World (2005), Chapter 16 “The Anomalies Room” (p. 273)

The Ethics of Belief (1877), The Weight Of Authority
Context: What shall we say of that authority, more venerable and august than any individual witness, the time-honoured tradition of the human race? An atmosphere of beliefs and conceptions has been formed by the labours and struggles of our forefathers, which enables us to breathe amid the various and complex circumstances of our life. It is around and about us and within us; we cannot think except in the forms and processes of thought which it supplies. Is it possible to doubt and to test it? and if possible, is it right?
We shall find reason to answer that it is not only possible and right, but our bounden duty; that the main purpose of the tradition itself is to supply us with the means of asking questions, of testing and inquiring into things; that if we misuse it, and take it as a collection of cut-and-dried statements to be accepted without further inquiry, we are not only injuring ourselves here, but, by refusing to do our part towards the building up of the fabric which shall be inherited by our children, we are tending to cut off ourselves and our race from the human line.

Introductory. Pearson refers the reader to William Wordsworth's preface to the Lyrical Ballads (1815) "General View of Poetry".
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Source: Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks (posthumous), p. 43

Christian Personalism's Place in Bioethics https://zenit.org/2004/07/06/christian-personalism-s-place-in-bioethics/ (6 July 2004)

Source: Nietzsche (1961), p. 78

Letter from Paris to His Friend in Moscow (March 1st, 1849), Imperial Russia, A Sourcebook 1700-1917

The Philosophical Emperor, a Political Experiment, or, The Progress of a False Position: (1841)
Context: Man soon finds what he wants to find. If he cannot find it otherwise, he creates it for his special enjoyment: for instance, if a man wants to see a ghost, he need only promulge his wish some night around a decaying fire, with a few alarmed and shocked listeners. Then let him ascend in the dark to a remote chamber, carefully looking over his shoulder every few moments; and if he will not see a ghost, he will feel as if he saw one, and that will be tantamount thereto.