Those kinds of morals and that kind of religion which tend to make the firmest and most effectual character are sure to prevail, all else being the same; and creeds or systems that conduce to a soft limp mind tend to perish, except some hard extrinsic force keep them alive.
Bagehot argues that moral and religious systems that foster strong character are more likely to survive.
Share
More from Walter Bagehot
I own that I do not entirely sympathise with the horror of these anomalies which haunts some of our best critics.
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.
These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.
The lessons are good where its primitive assumptions hold, but may be false where those assumptions fail.
Other voices in this conversation
