On the record
The selfish instinct of the mass of peers on this point is a keener and more exact judge of the real world than the fine intelligence of one or two of them.
Said by
Walter Bagehot
Source
gutenberg.orgWalter Bagehot: “The selfish instinct of the mass of peers on this point is a keener and more exact judge of the real world than the fine…”
Editor's note · Context
Bagehot argues that the collective judgment of peers is often more accurate than that of a few individuals.
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More from Walter Bagehot
The power of free interchange of ideas being wanting, the ideas themselves were barren.
Those who doubt should go out into their kitchens.
If those persons be people of different temperaments, different ideas, and different educations, you have an almost infallible security that nothing, or almost nothing, will be done with excessive rapidity.
Savages waste away before modern civilisation; they seem to have held their ground before the ancient.
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