On the record
The majority of the 'groups' which win and conquer are better than the majority of those which fail and perish, and thus the first world grow better and was improved.
Said by
Walter Bagehot
Source
gutenberg.orgWalter Bagehot: “The majority of the 'groups' which win and conquer are better than the majority of those which fail and perish, and thus…”
Editor's note · Context
Bagehot asserts that the groups that succeed are generally superior to those that fail, leading to overall improvement in the world.
Share
More from Walter Bagehot
These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.
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.
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.
I own that I do not entirely sympathise with the horror of these anomalies which haunts some of our best critics.
Other voices in this conversation
