On the record
To treat men so different as Newton and Byron, Cromwell and Rousseau, in a precisely similar way is patently absurd.
Said by
Harold J. Laski
Source
gutenberg.orgHarold J. Laski: “To treat men so different as Newton and Byron, Cromwell and Rousseau, in a precisely similar way is patently absurd.”
Editor's note · Context
Laski critiques the absurdity of treating vastly different individuals as if they were the same.
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More from Harold J. Laski
Ultimately, that denial is always made upon the same ground: it is insisted that the doctrines or practices attacked are subversive of the civil order.
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…
Each age makes some idol in its own image and sacrifices upon its altar the freedom of those who refuse it worship.
To deny novelty or grievance a right of expression is a certain, if, indeed, an ultimate, validation of the truth they contain.
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