On the record
A deferential community in which the bulk of the people are ignorant, is therefore in a state of what is called in mechanics unstable equilibrium.
Said by
Walter Bagehot
Source
gutenberg.orgEditor's note · Context
He describes a community where ignorance prevails as being in a precarious state of political stability.
Share
More from Walter Bagehot
In early society, originality in life was forbidden and repressed by the fixed rule of life.
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.
The work would be done so well that we should not want any one to look over or revise it.
But, above all things, they were frightened of 'the world;' the spectacle of nature filled them with awe and dread.
Other voices in this conversation
