Indeed it is the same, because the causes which give birth to the startling varieties of individual character, and those which give birth to similar varieties of national character, are, in fact, the same.
Bagehot asserts that the factors influencing individual and national character are fundamentally the same.
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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.
I own that I do not entirely sympathise with the horror of these anomalies which haunts some of our best critics.
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.
The lessons are good where its primitive assumptions hold, but may be false where those assumptions fail.
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