"He was absolutely right in his insistence that historians must recognize and respect the limitations which the nature of history and the characteristics of historical evidence impose on their endeavours. He was right in drawing attention to the importance of the unforeseen and unforeseeable in history, to the right of every age to be studied for its own sake, to the duty not to confuse a right to arrive at conclusions about people and events with a right to deliver judgements based on some universal principle."
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Historians from EnglandPhilosophers from EnglandUniversity of Cambridge facultyPeople from LeedsChristians from the United Kingdom
Original Language: English
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Geoffrey Elton, 'Herbert Butterfield and the Study of History', The Historical Journal, Vol. 27, No. 3 (September 1984), p. 733
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Herbert_Butterfield
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Herbert Butterfield
Herbert Butterfield (October 7, 1900 – July 20, 1979) was a British historian and philosopher of history who is remembered chiefly for a slim volume entitled, The Whig Interpretation of History (1931).
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