"History does not furnish Maine, as it furnished Acton, with any guiding thread of growing freedom; and the process towards contract does not appear in the issue to be a process towards liberty. What History proves is the rarity and fragility of democracy. History has with Maine, what it tends to have with many of us, a way of numbing generous emotions. All things have happened already; nothing much came of them before; and nothing much can be expected of them now."
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University of Cambridge facultyJuristsUniversity of Oxford facultyHistorians from ScotlandNon-fiction authors from Scotland
Original Language: English
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Sources
Ernest Barker, Political Thought in England 1848 to 1914 (1915; 2nd ed. 1928), p. 167
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_James_Sumner_Maine
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Henry James Sumner Maine
Sir Henry James Sumner Maine (15 August 1822 – 3 February 1888) was a British comparative jurist, historian and political proto-progressive nonetheless famous for his varied objections to Whig history.
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