In Tolkien: Author of the Century, Shippey says that he hasn’t been able to find anyone before Acton who said that power corrupts, though he did find one source which said that power reveals character.
I’m wondering whether people failed to notice that power corrupts, or it doesn’t corrupt as reliably as all that, or whether it took until Acton’s time for people to think it was abnormal for the people in charge to take a big share for themselves and/or be generally irresponsible.
In Tolkien: Author of the Century, Shippey says that he hasn’t been able to find anyone before Acton who said that power corrupts, though he did find one source which said that power reveals character.
I’m wondering whether people failed to notice that power corrupts, or it doesn’t corrupt as reliably as all that, or whether it took until Acton’s time for people to think it was abnormal for the people in charge to take a big share for themselves and/or be generally irresponsible.