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It was said in the middle ages that God uses intermediate agents to make the material world, mere animal life and the human body; but he creates ever… - Herbert Butterfield
" "It was said in the middle ages that God uses intermediate agents to make the material world, mere animal life and the human body; but he creates every human soul with His own hands. Human beings, though fallen from the state of innocence, move as gods and bear the image of God; they are not part of the litter of the earth, to be left uncounted like the sands of the sea. Each is a precious jewel, each a separate well of life, each we may say a separate poem; so that, without taking them in the mass, every single one of them has a value incommensurate with anything else in the created universe. In the light of this doctrine, the riches of human personality, the possibilities that lie in human nature and the fulness of the word humanity itself, were fostered and treasured by the teaching of the church. Even if only a shadow of the Christian tradition still hangs across our path, we can hardly surrender to the mythology of the deified state.
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About Herbert Butterfield
Herbert Butterfield (October 7, 1900 – July 20, 1979) was a British historian and philosopher of history who is remembered chiefly for a slim volume entitled, The Whig Interpretation of History (1931).
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Sir Herbert Butterfield
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Macaulay refers to the fact that England has always taken particular pride in the maintenance of her institutional continuity. Our statesmen and lawyers have been under the influence of the past to a greater degree than those of other countries. From the 17th century our greatest innovators have tried to show that they were not innovators at all but restorers of ancient ways. And so it is that even when we have a revolution we look to the past and try to carry it out in accordance with ancient precedents. It is different in France as Macaulay explains—different especially since the Revolution of 1789. A Frenchman has no need to exaggerate the power of Louis XIV or underrate the ancient rights of the Parlement of Paris. He can take the view that the year 1789 rules a line across the story, he can say that modern France has a new start at the Revolution; while in modern England, if an unusual problem arises, the procedure may have to be determined upon precedents that go back to the middle ages. So in all English controversies both parties have referred to history in order to discover what they wished to discover—both parties have had a colossal vested interest in the historical enquiries that were taking place
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All we can say now is that the government of England did not in fact develop into a despotism. In any case a tory historiography based on this monarchical supposition cannot exist in England in the 20th century. It is possible to be a tory historian in detail—to be kind to Charles I or Charles II or George III. It is not possible to have a tory structure of English history as a counterpart to that of the whigs.
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