On the record
The notion of a far-seeing and despotic statesman, who can lay down plans for ages yet unborn, is a fancy generated by the pride of the human intellect to which facts give no support.
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Walter Bagehot
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gutenberg.orgWalter Bagehot: “The notion of a far-seeing and despotic statesman, who can lay down plans for ages yet unborn, is a fancy generated by…”
Editor's note · Context
Bagehot critiques the unrealistic expectations of statesmen who believe they can plan for the distant future.
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More from Walter Bagehot
It is natural that those who by special and admirable culture have come to look at all things upon the artistic side, should start back from these queer peculiarities.
Political philosophy is still more imperfect; it has been framed from observations taken upon regular specimens of politics and States; as to these its teaching is most valuable.
These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.
I cannot, therefore, join in the full cry against anomalies; in my judgment it may quickly overrun the scent, and so miss what we should be glad to find.
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