William Ernest Hocking - History Quotes

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What our view of the effectiveness of religion in history does at once make evident as to its nature is—first, its necessary distinction; second, its necessary supremacy. These characters though external have been so essential to its fruitfulness, as to justify the statement that without them religion is not religion. A merged religion and a negligible or subordinate religion are no religion.

William Ernest Hocking

However rich we may become in knowledge of the deeper causes of historical results, we forgo all understanding of history if we forget this inner continuity,—i. e., the conscious intentions of the participants in history-making and their consciously known successes.

William Ernest Hocking

For those who have only to obey, law is what the sovereign commands. For the sovereign, in the throes of deciding what he ought to command, this view of law is singularly empty of light and leading. In the dispersed sovereignty of modern states, and especially in times of rapid social change, law must look to the future as well as to history and precedent, and to what is possible and right as well as to what is actual.

William Ernest Hocking