First book of the Commonwealth movement in England (a huge inspiration for the American Founding), AN ACCOUNT OF DENMARK by Robert Molesworth. From the preface: Good Learning as well as Travel is a great Antidote against the Plague of Tyranny. The Books that are left us of the Ancients (from whence, as from Fountains, we draw all that we are now Masters of) are full of Doctrines, Sentences, and Examples exhorting to the Conservation or Recovery of the publick Liberty, which was once valued above Life. The Heroes there celebrated are for the most part such as had destroyed or expelled Tyrants; and though Brutus be generally declaimed against by modern School-boys, he was then esteemed the true Pattern and Model of exact Virtue. Such was Cato of Utica, with others of like stamp. The more any person is conversant with good Books, the more shall he find the practices of these Great Men in this particular founded upon Reason, Justice, and Truth; and unanimously approv’d of by most of the succeeding Wise-men which the World has produc’d.
Posted on: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 16:11:52 +0000