Herbert Butterfield

About the scientific revolution: it “outshines everything since the rise of Christianity and reduces the Renaissance and Reformation to the rank of mere episodes”.

— Herbert Butterfield

Considering the part played by the sciences in the story of our Western civilization, it is hardly possible to doubt the importance which the history of science will sooner or later acquire both in its own right and as the bridge which has been so long needed in between the Arts and the Sciences.

— Herbert Butterfield

But the greatest menace to our civilization today is the conflict between giant organized systems of self-righteousness—each system only too delighted to find that the other is wicked—each only too glad that the sins give it the pretext for still deeper hatred and animosity.

— Herbert Butterfield

The raconteur knows too well that, if he investigates the truth of the matter, he is only too likely to lose his good story.”

— Herbert Butterfield

The study of the past with one eye upon the present is the source of all sins and sophistries in history. It is the essence of what we mean by the word "unhistorical".”

— Herbert Butterfield

If history can do anything it is to remind us of those complications that undermine our certainties, and to show us that all our judgements are merely relative to time and circumstance. ...we can never assert that history has proved any man right in the long run.

— Herbert Butterfield

When the sins and errors of an age have made the world impossible to live in, the next generation, seeking to make life tolerable again, may be able to find no way save by surrender of cherished ideals, and so may find themselves compelled to cast about for new dreams and purposes. An important aspect of the historical process is the work of the new generation... being driven to something like a creative act for the very reason that life on the old terms has become impossible.

— Herbert Butterfield

We have to be on our guard when the whig historian tells us... that the Reformation is justified because it ultimately led to liberty... for it is possible to argue against the whig historian that the ultimate issue which he applauds only came in the long run from the fact that, in its immediate results, The Reformation was disastrous to liberty.

— Herbert Butterfield