Herbert Butterfield

Herbert Butterfield (October 7, 1900 – July 20, 1979) was a British historian and philosopher of history who is remembered chiefly for a slim volume entitled The Whig Interpretation of History (1931).

Sourced

• About the scientific revolution: it “outshines everything since the rise of Christianity and reduces the Renaissance and Reformation to the rank of mere episodes”.
  • The origins of modern science, 1300-1800, Bell, (1949).

• 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.
  • Christianity, Diplomacy and War (1953), p. 43.