On the record
The deistic controversy involved a fresh investigation of the basis of morals; and it is to the credit of the investigators that they attempted to provide it in social terms.
Said by
Harold J. Laski
Source
gutenberg.orgEditor's note · Context
Laski highlights the significance of the deistic controversy in shaping moral foundations through social investigation.
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More from Harold J. Laski
How could it seek security where it defied the desires of the vast majority of its subjects?
We do not build Utopias; and the attempt to discover the eternal principles of political right invites disaster at the outset.
The theory of a state of nature, with the rights therein implied, is the contribution, through Stoicism, of the Roman lawyers, and the great medieval contrast to Aristotle's experimentalism.
But we cannot understand the eighteenth century, or its theories, unless we realize that its temper was still dominantly aristocratic.
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