We unconsciously assume around us the existence of a great miscellaneous social machine working to our hands, and not only supplying our wants, but even telling and deciding when those wants shall come.
This quote highlights Bagehot's view on the complex social structures that support modern life, often unnoticed by individuals.
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More from Walter Bagehot
The United States could not have become monarchical, even if the Constitutional Convention had decreed it, even if the component States had ratified it.
But all men heed great results, and a change of Government is a great result.
All savage religions are full of superstitions founded on luck.
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.
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