Walter Bagehot

The barbarians are no longer so much as vanquished competitors; they have ceased to compete at all.

A very little consideration would have shown them that, since the monopoly of military inventions by cultivated states, real and effective military power tends to confine itself to those states.

Again, this force has tended to concentrate itself more and more in certain groups which we call 'civilised nations.' The literati of the last century were for ever in fear of a new conquest of the barbarians, but only because their…

If you added up the many little hosts of any century of separation, they would perhaps be found equal or greater than the single host, or the fewer hosts, of previous centuries which were more united.

And I suppose the improvement has been continuous: I have not the slightest pretence to special knowledge; but, looking at the mere surface of the facts, it seems likely that the aggregate battle array, so to say, of mankind, the fighting…

Napoleon could indisputably have conquered Alexander; our Indian army would not think much of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand.

Ancient civilisation may be compared with modern in many respects, and plausible arguments constructed to show that it is better; but you cannot compare the two in military power.

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

But in this, as in other cases, the objection is, I think, passing away; the new principle is more and more seen to be fatal to mere outworks of religion, not to religion itself.

At first some objection was raised to the principle of 'natural selection' in physical science upon religious grounds; it was to be expected that so active an idea and so large a shifting of thought would seem to imperil much which men…

Neither of these competitions is in most historic conditions intensified by extrinsic forces, but in some conditions, such as those now prevailing in the most influential part of the world, both are so intensified.

Within every particular nation the type or types of character then and there most attractive tend to prevail; and, the most attractive, though with exceptions, is what we call the best character.

In every particular state of the world, those nations which are strongest tend to prevail over the others; and in certain marked peculiarities the strongest tend to be the best.

In solving, or trying to solve, the question, we must take notice of this remarkable difference, and explain it, too, or else we may be sure our principles are utterly incomplete, and perhaps altogether unsound.

In historic times there has been little progress; in prehistoric times there must have been much.

No doubt history shows that most nations are stationary now; but it affords reason to think that all nations once advanced.

Only a few nations, and those of European origin, advance; and yet these think--seem irresistibly compelled to think--such advance to be inevitable, natural, and eternal.

Savages, again, do not improve; they hardly seem to have the basis on which to build, much less the material to put up anything worth having.

The ancients had no conception of progress; they did not so much as reject the idea; they did not even entertain the idea.

Our habitual instructors, our ordinary conversation, our inevitable and ineradicable prejudices tend to make us think that 'Progress' is the normal fact in human society, the fact which we should expect to see, the fact which we should be…

But in early times Providence 'set apart the nations;' and it is not till the frame of their morals is set by long ages of transmitted discipline, that such enlargement can be borne.

It is now-a-days its greatest good that it does so; the change is what we call 'enlargement of mind'.

Commerce brings this mingling of ideas, this breaking down of old creeds, and brings it inevitably.

And to the unconscious imitation which was their principal tool, no impediment was so formidable as foreign intercourse.

The sea deserved to be hated by the old aristocracies, inasmuch as it has been the mightiest instrument in the civilisation of mankind.' But the old oligarchies had their own work, as we now know.