ABSTRACT
The rare man who can sift the unchanging out of our constantly changing world is a man for the ages, a man who spans more than his own generation. John Adams, philosopher of the Revolution and early America, participant in many of the major events of that period, strove to perceive the patterns of constancy that lend a universal character to the lives of all men. The way in which Adams viewed man, as a being of liberty but subject to God's law, determined the answer he gave to the fundamental problem of how to reconcile liberty and law. The solution that Adams offered to the world was not original; it was a classic answer, rooted in the thought of the classical Greek, Roman and English political philosophers and lawyers. Continuing publication of The Adams Papers, sponsored by the Massachusetts Historical Society and financed by Time Inc., on behalf of Life, increasingly facilitates research on the Adams family.
