Conquest is the premium given by nature to those national characters which their national customs have made most fit to win in war, and in many most material respects those winning characters are really the best characters.
This quote reflects Bagehot's belief that national customs influence the success of nations in warfare.
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More from Walter Bagehot
That a House of Commons may work well it must perform, as we saw, five functions well: it must elect a Ministry well, legislate well, teach the nation well, express the nation's will well, bring matters to the nation's attention well.
Savages waste away before modern civilisation; they seem to have held their ground before the ancient.
Nothing promotes intellect like intellectual discussion, and nothing promotes intellectual discussion so much as government by discussion.
In early society, originality in life was forbidden and repressed by the fixed rule of life.
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