It took three centuries to build up the sovereign national state to that amplitude which proclaimed its own disastrous character in 1914; it would be remarkable indeed if a decade full of memories and hates so passionate as those of the last ten years sufficed to overthrow its authority.
Laski reflects on the long history of national sovereignty and its implications post-World War I.
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Each age makes some idol in its own image and sacrifices upon its altar the freedom of those who refuse it worship.
The intolerance may be Catholic, when it insists that a unity of outlook is essential for the preservation of society; or it may be Protestant when, as with Calvin and the Socinians, it holds that the blasphemous nature of the belief…
When attacks on liberty are political or economic, it is their motive rather than their nature that changes.
The only way to deal with novelty is to understand it, and the only way to deal with grievance is to seek a remedy for the complaint it embodies.
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