What is most evident is not the difficulty of getting a fixed law, but getting out of a fixed law; not of cementing (as upon a former occasion I phrased it) a cake of custom, but of breaking the cake of custom; not of making the first preservative habit, but of breaking through it, and reaching something better.
Bagehot highlights the difficulty of breaking free from established customs to achieve progress.
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More from Walter Bagehot
The work would be done so well that we should not want any one to look over or revise it.
It is absurd to choose by contested party election an impartial chooser of Ministers.
And, to the effectual maintenance of such a separation, the exclusion of the President's Ministers from the legislature is essential.
Nothing promotes intellect like intellectual discussion, and nothing promotes intellectual discussion so much as government by discussion.
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