But, thoroughly to deal with such phenomena as these, we must examine the mode in which national characters can be emancipated from the rule of custom, and can be prepared for the use of choice.
Bagehot discusses the need to understand how national characters can break free from traditional customs to embrace choice.
Share
More from Walter Bagehot
The progress of the military art is the most conspicuous, I was about to say the most SHOWY, fact in human history.
Thirdly, we see why so few nations have made rapid advance, and how many have become stationary.
The United States could not have become monarchical, even if the Constitutional Convention had decreed it, even if the component States had ratified it.
He gave an excellent moral example to his contemporaries, but he is an instance of those whose good dies with them, while their evil lives after them.
Other voices in this conversation
