The plain, palpable conclusion which every one around him believes, has an influence yet greater and more subtle; that conclusion seems so solid and unmistakable; his own good arguments get daily more and more like a dream.
Bagehot discusses how strong collective beliefs can overshadow personal reasoning.
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Our law very often reminds one of those outskirts of cities where you cannot for a long time tell how the streets come to wind about in so capricious and serpent-like a manner.
But it is natural also that persons used to analyse political institutions should look at these anomalies with a little tenderness and a little interest.
The lessons are good where its primitive assumptions hold, but may be false where those assumptions fail.
At last it strikes you that they grew up, house by house, on the devious tracks of the old green lanes; and if you follow on to the existing fields, you may often find the change half complete.
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