Walter Bagehot: “The first great benefit was the deliverance of mankind from the superannuated yoke of customary law, by the gradual…”

If those persons be people of different temperaments, different ideas, and different educations, you have an almost infallible security that nothing, or almost nothing, will be done with excessive rapidity.

And again, in political matters, how quickly a leading statesman can change the tone of the community!

The moderate people of every party must combine to support the Government which, on the whole, suits every party best.

That a House of Commons may work well it must perform, as we saw, five functions well: it must elect a Ministry well, legislate well, teach the nation well, express the nation's will well, bring matters to the nation's attention well.