On the record
You cannot trace the roots of an old perfect system variously maimed and variously dying; you cannot find it, as you find the trace of the Latin language in the mediaeval dialects.
Said by
Walter Bagehot
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gutenberg.orgWalter Bagehot: “You cannot trace the roots of an old perfect system variously maimed and variously dying; you cannot find it, as you…”
Editor's note · Context
Bagehot discusses the challenges of tracing the origins of complex systems in society.
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More from Walter Bagehot
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.
These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.
Just so the lines of our Constitution were framed in old eras of sparse population, few wants, and simple habits; and we adhere in seeming to their shape, though civilisation has come with its dangers, complications, and enjoyments.
The lessons are good where its primitive assumptions hold, but may be false where those assumptions fail.
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