That is why Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume and Adam Smith--to take only men of the first eminence--were thinking not less for politics than for ethics when they sought to justify the ways of man to man.
Laski identifies the dual focus on ethics and politics among prominent thinkers like Shaftesbury and Hume.
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He is able, accordingly, to indulge in the twofold luxury not only of preserving his own authority, but also of assisting the persons attacked to enter, if they so choose, the way of truth.
To deny novelty or grievance a right of expression is a certain, if, indeed, an ultimate, validation of the truth they contain.
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.
Each age makes some idol in its own image and sacrifices upon its altar the freedom of those who refuse it worship.
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