A single competent selector of new inventions would probably in the course of years, after some experience, arrive at something tolerable; it is in the nature of steady, regular, experimenting ability to diminish, if not vanquish, such difficulties.
Bagehot discusses the potential benefits of having a single, experienced individual select new inventions over time.
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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.
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.
The lessons are good where its primitive assumptions hold, but may be false where those assumptions fail.
The casual line was traced according to the strength of deceased combatants; succeeding generations fought elsewhere; and the hesitating line of a half-drawn battle was left to stand for a perpetual limit.
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