On the record
Everybody was born to a place in the community: in that place he had to stay: in that place he found certain duties which he had to fulfil, and which were all he needed to think of.
Said by
Walter Bagehot
Source
gutenberg.orgWalter Bagehot: “Everybody was born to a place in the community: in that place he had to stay: in that place he found certain duties…”
Editor's note · Context
Bagehot describes the rigid social structures of early communities where individuals had predetermined roles.
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More from Walter Bagehot
The lessons are good where its primitive assumptions hold, but may be false where those assumptions fail.
I cannot, therefore, join in the full cry against anomalies; in my judgment it may quickly overrun the scent, and so miss what we should be glad to find.
These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.
Just so the lines of our Constitution were framed in old eras of sparse population, few wants, and simple habits; and we adhere in seeming to their shape, though civilisation has come with its dangers, complications, and enjoyments.
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