On the record
The higher savages, as the New Zealanders, are less uniform; they have more of the varied and compact structure of civilised nations, because in other respects they are more civilised.
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Walter Bagehot
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gutenberg.orgWalter Bagehot: “The higher savages, as the New Zealanders, are less uniform; they have more of the varied and compact structure of…”
Editor's note · Context
Bagehot notes that higher savages exhibit more diversity, akin to civilized nations, due to their greater civilization.
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More from Walter Bagehot
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.
The lessons are good where its primitive assumptions hold, but may be false where those assumptions fail.
I own that I do not entirely sympathise with the horror of these anomalies which haunts some of our best critics.
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