Politics, as Seeley said, are vulgar unless they are liberalized by history; and a state which failed to see itself as a mosaic of ancestral institutions would build its novelties upon foundations of sand.
Laski emphasizes the importance of historical context in politics, arguing against a purely modern perspective.
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The essence of the persecuting position is always that the persecutor has hold of truth and that he would betray its service by allowing it to be questioned.
We grant it in religion to deny it in politics; we grant it in politics, to deny it in economic matters.
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.
It has been the historic character of persecution always to degrade the persecutor and to strengthen the persecuted by drawing attention to their claims.
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