Nowhere does the ancient doctrine--that differences or similarities in the various forms of life that inhabit different countries are due to corresponding physical differences or similarities in the countries themselves--meet with so direct and palpable a contradiction.
Bagehot critiques the ancient doctrine linking life forms to physical geography, citing contradictions.
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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.
These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.
The casual line was traced according to the strength of deceased combatants; succeeding generations fought elsewhere; and the hesitating line of a half-drawn battle was left to stand for a perpetual limit.
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