On the record
You might as well adopt a father as make a monarchy: the special sentiment belonging to the one is as incapable of voluntary creation as the peculiar affection belonging to the other.
Said by
Walter Bagehot
Source
gutenberg.orgWalter Bagehot: “You might as well adopt a father as make a monarchy: the special sentiment belonging to the one is as incapable of…”
Editor's note · Context
Bagehot compares the impossibility of creating a monarchy to the natural affection found in familial relationships, emphasizing the need for genuine sentiment.
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More from Walter Bagehot
He could have found the truth as a statesman just as he found it when a judge; but he never did find it.
The work would be done so well that we should not want any one to look over or revise it.
That a House of Commons may work well it must perform, as we saw, five functions well: it must elect a Ministry well, legislate well, teach the nation well, express the nation's will well, bring matters to the nation's attention well.
If the above reasoning be sound, compulsory constituencies are necessary, voluntary constituencies destructive; the optional transferability of votes is not a salutary aid, but a ruinous innovation.
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