If you look at a group of people that had faith, it's got to be the Jews. They followed Moses through the desert for 40 years with no map. There had to be one guy in the back, like, 'I don't think he knows where he's going.'
A crime persevered in a thousand centuries ceases to be a crime, and becomes a virtue. This is the law of custom, and custom supersedes all other forms of law.
Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."