His power rests too much on human reason, and too little on human instinct.
Walter Bagehot: “His power rests too much on human reason, and too little on human instinct.”
Editor's note · Context
Bagehot critiques the reliance on rationality in governance, emphasizing the importance of instinct.
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More from Walter Bagehot
These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.
Political philosophy is still more imperfect; it has been framed from observations taken upon regular specimens of politics and States; as to these its teaching is most valuable.
At last it strikes you that they grew up, house by house, on the devious tracks of the old green lanes; and if you follow on to the existing fields, you may often find the change half complete.
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.





