Walter Bagehot

In the early stages of human society all change is thought an evil.

The passions are so powerful, force so eager, the social bond so weak, that the august spectacle of an all but unalterable law is necessary to preserve society.

In that age men do not want to have their laws adapted, but to have their laws steady.

That men should enjoy the fruits of their labour, that the law of property should be known, that the law of marriage should be known, that the whole course of life should be kept in a calculable track is the summum bonum of early ages, the…

Perfection in legislation is not to be looked for, and is not, indeed, much wanted in a rude, painful, confined life.

Any law which the people of ignorant times enact is sure to involve many misconceptions, and to cause many evils.

In early societies it matters much more that the law should be fixed than that it should be good.

The VALUED use of Parliament was not half so much to alter the law, as to prevent the laws being altered.

The custom of the realm--the aboriginal transmitted law--the law which was in the breast of the judges, could not be altered without the consent of Parliament, and therefore everybody felt sure it would not be altered except in grave…

The great majority of nations conceive of their law, either as something Divinely given, and therefore unalterable, or as a fundamental habit, inherited from the past to be transmitted to the future.

ANY permanent legislature at all, any constantly acting mechanism for enacting and repealing laws, is, though it seems to us so natural, quite contrary to the inveterate conceptions of mankind.

It is only in later times, when the world is wider, its experience larger, and its thought colder, that the plain rule of a palpably chosen ruler is even possible.

They believe that there is ONE man whom by mystic right they should obey; and therefore they do obey him.

But though this superstition prevents the election of rulers, it renders possible the existence of unelected rulers.

It prevents, indeed, men from choosing their rulers; you cannot invest with that loyal illusion a man who was yesterday what you are, who to-morrow may be so again, whom you chose to be what he is.

This illusion has been and still is of incalculable benefit to the human race.

You fancy that the object of your loyalty is as much elevated above you by intrinsic nature as he is by extrinsic position; you deify him in sentiment, as once men deified him in doctrine.

The third condition of all elective government is what I may call RATIONALITY, by which I mean a power involving intelligence, but yet distinct from it.

The conspicuous dignity awakens the sentiment of reverence, and men, often very undignified, seize the occasion to govern by means of it.

They fancy they are governed by an hereditary Queen, a Queen by the grace of God, when they are really governed by a Cabinet and a Parliament--men like themselves, chosen by themselves.

The poorer and more ignorant classes--those who would most feel excitement, who would most be misled by excitement--really believe that the Queen governs.

The excitement of choosing our rulers is prevented by the apparent existence of an unchosen ruler.

The incalculable advantage of august institutions in a free state is, that they prevent this collapse.

A second and very rare condition of an elective government is a CALM national mind--a tone of mind sufficiently staple to bear the necessary excitement of conspicuous revolutions.

The best political credit is analogous; we trust our countrymen without remembering that we trust them.