Majorities may be either genuine or fictitious, and if they are not genuine, if they do not embody the opinion of the representative as well as the opinion of the constituency, no one would wish to have any attention paid to them.
Bagehot highlights the importance of genuine majorities in representing public opinion in Parliament.
Share
More from Walter Bagehot
In early society, originality in life was forbidden and repressed by the fixed rule of life.
The Parliament, the laws, the press were human institutions; but the Monarchy was a Divine institution.
We have thus a whole group of ancient republics of non-Aryan race, and one which, being more ancient than the classical republics, could not have borrowed from or imitated them.
The work would be done so well that we should not want any one to look over or revise it.
Other voices in this conversation
