Walter Bagehot: “You cannot put on a great series of such duties without cramping trade in a hundred ways and without diminishing their…”

But it is natural also that persons used to analyse political institutions should look at these anomalies with a little tenderness and a little interest.

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.

I cannot, therefore, join in the full cry against anomalies; in my judgment it may quickly overrun the scent, and so miss what we should be glad to find.