The influence of the political discussion, and the influence of the religious discussion, have been so long and so firmly combined, and have so effectually enforced one another, that the old notions of loyalty, and fealty, and authority, as they existed in the Middle Ages, have now over the best minds almost no effect.
Bagehot discusses the intertwined influences of political and religious discussions on modern notions of loyalty and authority.
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At last it strikes you that they grew up, house by house, on the devious tracks of the old green lanes; and if you follow on to the existing fields, you may often find the change half complete.
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.
I own that I do not entirely sympathise with the horror of these anomalies which haunts some of our best critics.
These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.
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