By far the most important free institutions, and the only ones which have left living representatives in the world, are the offspring either of the first constitutions of the classical nations or of the first constitutions of the Germanic nations.
Bagehot identifies the classical and Germanic nations as the primary sources of enduring free institutions.
Share
More from Walter Bagehot
They have given what I may call a CONFIDENCE IN THE UNIVERSE.
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.
He had seen that LEISURE is the great need of early societies, and slaves only can give men leisure.
He gave an excellent moral example to his contemporaries, but he is an instance of those whose good dies with them, while their evil lives after them.
Other voices in this conversation
