Nearer.

From a 1980 episode of Firing Line, Buckley and Malcolm Muggeridge discuss religion and the need for religions institutions (the segemnt from 12:39 -31:14 is outstanding) ...

BUCKLEY

Mightn't it be said, with some confidence, that the search for historical and sociological knowledge teaches us what in fact you have formulated in one of your propositions, the way you put it is as follows: "There can never be a good government, only governments that are less bad than others.  The quest for a perfect government ends infallibly in anarchy or the Gulag Archipeligo.

That is an anti-utopian conviction of yours that I happen to share, and it, once again using the Christian metaphor, distinguishes the City of Man from the City of God, does it not?  But, isn't it true that a pursuit of knowledge teaches us the limitations of government?

MUGGERIDGE

It should -- but it doesn't always.  In that it's done for itself alone, it tends to increase people's arrogance, rather than teach them humility, which, of course, is the condition of all awareness of truth.  Simone Weil says that the only purpose of seeking knowledge through education is to make men realize the inadequacy of their knowledge.  Realizing that, of course, then they're brought nearer to God.  But when you make knowledge an end in itself, then it's destructive of truth.