Walter Bagehot: “But to gain that rule, what may be called the impressive elements of a…”

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But to gain that rule, what may be called the impressive elements of a polity are incomparably more important than its useful elements.

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Walter Bagehot

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Bagehot highlights the significance of impressive elements in governance over merely useful elements.

More from Walter Bagehot

Thirdly, we see why so few nations have made rapid advance, and how many have become stationary.

But the Jewish advantage never did so; beginning in religion, contrary to a thousand analogies, it remained religious.

The progress of the military art is the most conspicuous, I was about to say the most SHOWY, fact in human history.

Savages waste away before modern civilisation; they seem to have held their ground before the ancient.

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Walter Bagehot: “But to gain that rule, what may be called the impressive elements of a polity are incomparably more important than its…”