On the record
A good rule is better than a bad one, but any rule is better than none; while, for reasons which a jurist will appreciate, none can be very good.
Said by
Walter Bagehot
Source
gutenberg.orgWalter Bagehot: “A good rule is better than a bad one, but any rule is better than none; while, for reasons which a jurist will…”
Editor's note · Context
Bagehot asserts that while good rules are preferable, any rule is better than having none at all.
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More from Walter Bagehot
The lessons are good where its primitive assumptions hold, but may be false where those assumptions fail.
Subject to this saving remark, however, I not only admit, but maintain, that our Constitution is full of curious oddities, which are impeding and mischievous, and ought to be struck out.
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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