As far as experience goes, there is no reason to expect an hereditary series of useful limited monarchs.
Walter Bagehot: “As far as experience goes, there is no reason to expect an hereditary series of useful limited monarchs.”
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Walter Bagehot
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gutenberg.orgEditor's note · Context
Bagehot expresses skepticism about the expectation of a lineage of effective limited monarchs.
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These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.
Our law very often reminds one of those outskirts of cities where you cannot for a long time tell how the streets come to wind about in so capricious and serpent-like a manner.
The lessons are good where its primitive assumptions hold, but may be false where those assumptions fail.
The casual line was traced according to the strength of deceased combatants; succeeding generations fought elsewhere; and the hesitating line of a half-drawn battle was left to stand for a perpetual limit.





