You might as well adopt a father as make a monarchy: the special sentiment belonging to the one is as incapable of voluntary creation as the peculiar affection belonging to the other.
Walter Bagehot: “You might as well adopt a father as make a monarchy: the special sentiment belonging to the one is as incapable of…”
Editor's note · Context
Bagehot compares the impossibility of creating a monarchy to the natural affection found in familial relationships, emphasizing the need for genuine sentiment.
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They say, We reject your Bill for this once or these twice, or even these thrice: but if you keep on sending it up, at last we won't reject it.
We have thus a whole group of ancient republics of non-Aryan race, and one which, being more ancient than the classical republics, could not have borrowed from or imitated them.
They have given what I may call a CONFIDENCE IN THE UNIVERSE.





