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Selections From the Prose and Poetry of John Henry Newman
Selections From the Prose and Poetry of John Henry Newman Author:John Henry Newman General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1907 Original Publisher: Houghton, Mifflin and company Subjects: English literature Literary Criticism / General Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Religion / Christianity / Catholic Religion / Christian Theology / General Religion / Ch... more »ristian Theology / Systematic Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: WHO ' TO BLAME ? CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ATHENIANS Now at length I am drawing near the subject which I have undertaken to treat, though Athens is both in leagues and in centuries a great way off England after all. But first to recapitulate : -- a State or polity implies two things, Power on the one hand, Liberty on the other ; a Rule and a Constitution. Power, when freely developed, results in centralization ; Liberty in self-government. The two principles are in antagonism from their very nature ; so far forth as you have rule, you have not liberty; so far forth as you have liberty, you have not rule. If a People gives up nothing at all, it remains a mere People, and does not rise to be a State. If it gives up everything, it could not be worse off, though it gave up nothing. Accordingly, it always must give up something ; it never can give up everything; and in every case the problem to be decided is, what is the most advisable compromise, what point is the maximum of at once protection and independence. Those political institutions are the best which subtract as little as possible from a people's natural independence as the price of their protection. The stronger you make the Ruler, the more he can do for you, but the more he also can do against you ; the weaker you make him, the less he can do against you, b...« less