Faith always presented to the mind the idea of an abnormal intellectual condition, of the subversion or suspension of the critical faculties.… — William Edward Hartpole Lecky Copy Share Image
[Middleton] contended that the religious leaders of the fourth century had admitted, eulogised, and habitually acted upon principles that were diametrically opposed,… — William Edward Hartpole Lecky Copy Share Image
The doctrine of a material hell in its effect was to chill and deaden the sympathies, predispose men to inflict suffering, and… — William Edward Hartpole Lecky Copy Share Image
All over Europe the organs that represent dogmatic interests are in permanent opposition to the progressive tendencies around them, and are rapidly… — William Edward Hartpole Lecky Copy Share Image
Fierce invectives against women form a conspicuous and grotesque portion of the writings of the Church fathers. — William Edward Hartpole Lecky Copy Share Image
Whenever the clergy were at the elbow of the civil arm, no matter whether they were Catholic or Protestant, persecution was the… — William Edward Hartpole Lecky Copy Share Image
Nothing, indeed, could be more unlike the tone of the [Patristic] Fathers, than the cold, passionless, and prudential theology of the eighteenth… — William Edward Hartpole Lecky Copy Share Image
When the Church obtained the direction of the civil power, she soon modified or abandoned the tolerant maxims she had formerly inculcated;… — William Edward Hartpole Lecky Copy Share Image
On the Continent, every attempt to substitute a lighter punishment for death was fiercely denounced as a direct violation of the Divine… — William Edward Hartpole Lecky Copy Share Image
When men have appreciated the countless differences which the exercise of that judgment must necessarily produce, when they have estimated the intrinsic… — William Edward Hartpole Lecky Copy Share Image
Almost all Europe, for many centuries, was inundated with blood, which was shed at the direct instigation or with the full approval… — William Edward Hartpole Lecky Copy Share Image
When it began, Christianity was regarded as a system entirely beyond the range and scope of human reason; it was impious to… — William Edward Hartpole Lecky Copy Share Image
Making every allowance for the errors of the most extreme fallibility, the history of Catholicism would on this hypothesis represent an amount… — William Edward Hartpole Lecky Copy Share Image
All history shows that, in exact proportion as nations advance in civilisation, the accounts of miracles taking place among them become rarer… — William Edward Hartpole Lecky Copy Share Image
Faith always presented to the mind the idea of an abnormal intellectual condition, of the subversion or suspension of the critical faculties. It sometimes… — William Edward Hartpole Lecky Copy Share Image
There are times in the lives of most of us, when we would have given all the world to be as we were but… — William Edward Hartpole Lecky Copy Share Image
[Middleton] contended that the religious leaders of the fourth century had admitted, eulogised, and habitually acted upon principles that were diametrically opposed, not simply… — William Edward Hartpole Lecky Copy Share Image
The moral duty to be expected in different ages is not a unity of standard, or of acts, but a unity of tendency ...… — William Edward Hartpole Lecky Copy Share Image
The unweary, unostentatious, and inglorious crusade of England against slavery may probably be regarded as among the three or four perfectly virtuous pages comprised… — William Edward Hartpole Lecky Copy Share Image
There is no possible line of conduct which has at some time and place been condemned, and which has not at some other time… — William Edward Hartpole Lecky Copy Share Image
I venture to maintain that there are multitudes to whom the necessity of discharging the duties of a butcher would be so inexpressibly painful… — William Edward Hartpole Lecky Copy Share Image
Anxiety and Ennui are the Scylla and Charybdis on which the bark of human happiness is most often wrecked. — William Edward Hartpole Lecky Copy Share Image
“One of the great differences between childhood and manhood is that we come to like our work more than our play. It becomes to… — William Edward Hartpole Lecky Copy Share Image
The doctrine of a material hell in its effect was to chill and deaden the sympathies, predispose men to inflict suffering, and to retard… — William Edward Hartpole Lecky Copy Share Image
All over Europe the organs that represent dogmatic interests are in permanent opposition to the progressive tendencies around them, and are rapidly sinking into… — William Edward Hartpole Lecky Copy Share Image
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