The most imposing institutions of mankind are the oldest; and yet so changing is the world, so fluctuating are its needs, so apt to lose inward force, though retaining out ward strength, are its best instruments, that we must not expect the oldest institutions to be now the most efficient.
Bagehot reflects on the adaptability and changing nature of institutions over time.
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All savage religions are full of superstitions founded on luck.
He had seen that LEISURE is the great need of early societies, and slaves only can give men leisure.
But the Jewish advantage never did so; beginning in religion, contrary to a thousand analogies, it remained religious.
If those persons be people of different temperaments, different ideas, and different educations, you have an almost infallible security that nothing, or almost nothing, will be done with excessive rapidity.
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