Walter Bagehot

Political discussion must move those who have to act; it must be framed in the ideas, and be consonant with the precedent, of its time, just as it must speak its language.

But within these marked conditions good discussion is better than bad; no people can bear a government of discussion for a day, which does not, within the boundaries of its prejudices and its ideas, prefer good reasoning to bad reasoning…

Tolerance too is learned in discussion, and, as history shows, is only so learned.

In all customary societies bigotry is the ruling principle.

In rude places to this day any one who says anything new is looked on with suspicion, and is persecuted by opinion if not injured by penalty.

Naturally, therefore, common men hate a new idea, and are disposed more or less to ill-treat the original man who brings it.

Even nations with long habits of discussion are intolerant enough.

In England, where there is on the whole probably a freer discussion of a greater number of subjects than ever was before in the world, we know how much power bigotry retains.

If we know that a nation is capable of enduring continuous discussion, we know that it is capable of practising with equanimity continuous tolerance.

The power of a government by discussion as an instrument of elevation plainly depends--other things being equal--on the greatness or littleness of the things to be discussed.

There are periods when great ideas are 'in the air,' and when, from some cause or other, even common persons seem to partake of an unusual elevation.

The new idea of the Reformation in religion, and the enlargement of the MOENIA MUNDI by the discovery of new and singular lands, taken together, gave an impulse to thought which few, if any, ages can equal.

Poetry, science, and architecture, different as they are, and removed as they all are at first sight from such an influence as discussion, were suddenly started onward.

If any particular power is much prized in an age, those possessed of that power will be imitated; those deficient in that power will be despised.

Within certain limits vigorous and elevated thought was respected in Elizabeth's time, and, therefore, vigorous and elevated thinkers were many; and the effect went far beyond the cause.

In a word, the temper of the age encouraged originality, and in consequence original men started into prominence, went hither and thither where they liked, arrived at goals which the age never expected, and so made it ever memorable.

In this manner all the great movements of thought in ancient and modern times have been nearly connected in time with government by discussion.

Athens, Rome, the Italian republics of the Middle Ages, the COMMUNES and states-general of feudal Europe, have all had a special and peculiar quickening influence, which they owed to their freedom, and which states without that freedom…

And it has been at the time of great epochs of thought--at the Peloponnesian war, at the fall of the Roman Republic, at the Reformation, at the French Revolution--that such liberty of speaking and thinking have produced their full effect.

It is on this account that the discussions of savage tribes have produced so little effect in emancipating those tribes from their despotic customs.

Such discussions augment the vigour of language, encourage a debating facility, and develop those gifts of demeanour and of gesture which excite the confidence of the hearers.

But they do not excite the speculative intellect, do not lead men to argue speculative doctrines, or to question ancient principles.

The next question, therefore, is, Why did discussions in some cases relate to prolific ideas, and why did discussions in other cases relate only to isolated transactions?

The whole customary ways of thought were at once shaken by it, and shaken not only in the closets of philosophers, but in the common thought and daily business of ordinary men.

The progress of the military art is the most conspicuous, I was about to say the most SHOWY, fact in human history.