A constituency collected by law and on compulsion endures this change because it has no collective earnestness; it does not mind seeing the power it gave used in a manner that it could not have foreseen.
Bagehot explains that a legally formed constituency lacks the collective earnestness to hold its representatives accountable.
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More from Walter Bagehot
The progress of the military art is the most conspicuous, I was about to say the most SHOWY, fact in human history.
The work would be done so well that we should not want any one to look over or revise it.
They have given what I may call a CONFIDENCE IN THE UNIVERSE.
All savage religions are full of superstitions founded on luck.
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