Walter Bagehot: “Military morals can direct the axe to cut down the tree, but it knows nothing of the quiet force by which the forest…”

Our law very often reminds one of those outskirts of cities where you cannot for a long time tell how the streets come to wind about in so capricious and serpent-like a manner.

These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.

The casual line was traced according to the strength of deceased combatants; succeeding generations fought elsewhere; and the hesitating line of a half-drawn battle was left to stand for a perpetual limit.

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.