We have here the continuous force which binds age to age, which enables each to begin with some improvement on the last, if the last did itself improve; which makes each civilisation not a set of detached dots, but a line of colour, surely enhancing shade by shade.
Bagehot describes the continuity of civilization as a progressive improvement over time, rather than isolated events.
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More from Walter Bagehot
He had seen that LEISURE is the great need of early societies, and slaves only can give men leisure.
The power of free interchange of ideas being wanting, the ideas themselves were barren.
The Parliament, the laws, the press were human institutions; but the Monarchy was a Divine institution.
There is no ELASTIC element, everything is rigid, specified, dated.
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