Search

Copy specific notes

Bookplate inserted; inscribed in black ink on front endpaper: “Bob with best wishes from Stan. 22/7/39”. Also passage highlighted in pencil on pp. 165 – 166: “The Christian State proclaims human personality to be supreme ; the servile State denies this. Every compromise with the infinite value of the human soul leads straight back to savagery and the jungle. Expel this truth of our religion, and what follows? The insolence of dominion, and the cruelty of despotism. Denounce religion, and what follows? The insolence of dominion, and the cruelty of despotism. Denounce religion as the opium of the people, and you swiftly proceed to denounce political liberty and civil liberty as opium. Freedom of speech goes, tolerance follows, and justice is no more. [/] The fruits of the free spirit of man do not [p. 166] grow in the garden of tyranny. It has been well said that slavery is a weed that grows in every soil. As long as we have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common faith, men will turn their faces towards us and draw their breath more freely. [/] The association of the peoples of the Empire is rooted, and their fellowship is rooted, in this doctrine of the essential dignity of the individual human soul. That is the English secret, however feebly and faintly we have at times and places embraced and obeyed it.”