Still more then in the more complex combinations and politics of human beings it is likely to be hard to find an agreed criterion for saying which nation is before another, or what age of a nation was marching forward and which was falling back.
Bagehot notes the challenges in establishing criteria for evaluating the progress of nations, reflecting on the subjective nature of such assessments.
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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.
But it is natural also that persons used to analyse political institutions should look at these anomalies with a little tenderness and a little interest.
It is natural that those who by special and admirable culture have come to look at all things upon the artistic side, should start back from these queer peculiarities.
The lessons are good where its primitive assumptions hold, but may be false where those assumptions fail.
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