There is one fundamental fact which must be understood of the whole of this period, yet a modern man must very nearly turn his mind upside down to understand. it. Almost every modern man has in his head an association between freedom and the future. The whole culture of our time has been full of the notion of a good time coming - now the whole culture of the dark ages was full of the notion of a good time going. They looked backwards to old enlightenment and not forward to new prejudices. In our time there has come a quarrel between faith and hope which perhaps must be healed by charity. But they were situated otherwise. They hoped but it may be said, they hoped for yesterday - all the motives that mad a man a progressive, now made a man a conservative then. The more he could keep of the past, the more he had of a fair law and free state. The more he gave way7 to the future, the more he must endure of ignorance and privilege. All we call reason was all one with all we call reaction. And this is the clue which we must carry with us through all the lives of the great men of the dark ages, of Alfred the Great. If the extreme modern republican were put back in that period he would be an equally extreme papist or even imperialist, for the pope was what was left of the empire and the empire what was left of the republic. Who said this?
Posted on: Tue, 11 Jun 2013 14:25:46 +0000