Political Quotes

Walter Bagehot: The conscious end of early societies was not at all, or scarcely at all, the protection of life and property, as it was…

On the record
The conscious end of early societies was not at all, or scarcely at all, the protection of life and property, as it was assumed to be by the eighteenth-century theory of government.
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Walter Bagehot

Editor's note · Context

Bagehot challenges the notion that early societies primarily aimed to protect life and property, as suggested by 18th-century theories.

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