Queen Anne's case and William IV.'s case prove that neither object is certainly attained by entrusting this critical and extreme force to the chance idiosyncrasies and habitual mediocrity of an hereditary sovereign.
Bagehot argues against placing critical powers in the hands of hereditary monarchs based on historical examples.
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Our law very often reminds one of those outskirts of cities where you cannot for a long time tell how the streets come to wind about in so capricious and serpent-like a manner.
The lessons are good where its primitive assumptions hold, but may be false where those assumptions fail.
But it is natural also that persons used to analyse political institutions should look at these anomalies with a little tenderness and a little interest.
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.
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