Indeed, only a most shallow disputant who did not understand even the plainest facts of human nature could ever have maintained it; if men differ in anything they differ in the fineness and the delicacy of their moral intuitions, however we may suppose those feelings to have been acquired.
Walter Bagehot: “Indeed, only a most shallow disputant who did not understand even the plainest facts of human nature could ever have…”
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Walter Bagehot
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gutenberg.orgEditor's note · Context
Bagehot critiques those who deny differences in moral intuitions among individuals, emphasizing the complexity of human nature.
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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.
The lessons are good where its primitive assumptions hold, but may be false where those assumptions fail.
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.





