Sunday

A Random Passage

Worth pondering:

"Henry Maine noted [that] the history of Western civilization and Western liberty has been the shift from status to contract–from being locked into positions based on who you were at birth, to being able to live, work, do what you wish, deal with others as you please, based on mutually binding contracts–commercial, residential, or marital–chosen by both parties."

Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement

Who was Henry Maine? Perhaps the leading academic light of the nineteenth century. From Chapter IX of Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind:

The five brilliant volumes of his social studies constitute a foundation for this scientific history; modern legal thought and sociology and political speculation, as well as historical method, are deeply indebted to Maine. . . [T]he bulk of his writing looms still majestic in accuracy and outlook.