The pure conservative is fighting against the essence of the Universe. Those societies which cannot combine reverence to their symbols with freedom of revision, must ultimately decay either from anarchy, or from the slow atrophy of a life stifled by useless shadows. This is one great reason for the utmost toleration of variety of opinion. Men require of their neighbours something sufficiently akin to be understood, something sufficiently different to provoke attention, and something great enough to command admiration. We must not expect, however, all the virtues.
Political loyalty ceases at the frontiers of radical incapacity.
The solution provided by the doctrine of the sole sovereignty of the State, however grateful to Protestants and to sovereigns, is both shocking and unworkable, a mere stick with which to beat Papists in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a mere way to provide policemen for the countinghouses of merchants. This concept proved itself formidable. It helped to dismiss the Stuarts into romance, to found the American Republic, and to bring a out the French Revolution. The thoughts of Galileo and Newton were of supreme interest, but the habits of mankind between the dates 1690 and 1750 were very slightly altered. The total effect was that fortunate people had a new theme of intellectual enjoyment.