Walter Bagehot: “Few nations, perhaps scarcely any nation, could have borne such a trial so easily and so perfectly.”

That a House of Commons may work well it must perform, as we saw, five functions well: it must elect a Ministry well, legislate well, teach the nation well, express the nation's will well, bring matters to the nation's attention well.

In early society, originality in life was forbidden and repressed by the fixed rule of life.

And therefore party is inherent in it, is bone of its bone, and breath of its breath.

But, above all things, they were frightened of 'the world;' the spectacle of nature filled them with awe and dread.