A deferential community, even though its lowest classes are not intelligent, is far more suited to a Cabinet government than any kind of democratic country, because it is more suited to political excellence.
Bagehot argues that a deferential society is better suited for Cabinet government than a democratic one.
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He gave an excellent moral example to his contemporaries, but he is an instance of those whose good dies with them, while their evil lives after them.
If those persons be people of different temperaments, different ideas, and different educations, you have an almost infallible security that nothing, or almost nothing, will be done with excessive rapidity.
No doubt this momentary gain is bought at a ruinous after-cost.
But all men heed great results, and a change of Government is a great result.
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