English economist and political analyst (1826-1877)
A great deal of excellent research has been spent on the difference between "humor" and "wit," into which metaphysical problem " our limits," of course, forbid us to enter. There is, however, between them, the distinction of dry sticks and green sticks; there is in humor a living energy, a diffused potency, a noble sap; it grows upon the character of the humorist.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
A despot must feel that he is the pivot of the State. The stress of his kingdom is upon him. As he is, so are his affairs.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
A clear, precise, discriminating intellect shrinks at once from the symbolic, the unbounded, the indefinite. The misfortune is that mysticism is true. There certainly are kinds of truths, borne in as it were instinctively on the human intellect, most influential on the character and the heart, yet hardly capable of stringent statement, difficult to limit by an elaborate definition. Their course is shadowy; the mind seems rather to have seen than to see them, more to feel after than definitely apprehend them.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
There is a certain common polity, or germ of polity, which we find in all the rude nations that have attained civilization. These nations seem to begin in what I may call a consultative and tentative absolutism. The king of early days, in vigorous nations, was not absolute as despots now are; there was then no standing army to repress rebellion, no organized ESPIONAGE to spy out discontent, no skilled bureaucracy to smooth the ruts of obedient life. The early king was indeed consecrated by a religious sanction; he was essentially a man apart, a man above others, divinely anointed or even God-begotten. But in nations capable of freedom this religious domination was never despotic. There was indeed no legal limit; the very words could not be translated into the dialect of those times. The notion of law as we have it—of a rule imposed by human authority, capable of being altered by that authority, when it likes, and in fact, so altered habitually—could not be conveyed to early nations, who regarded law half as an invincible prescription, and half as a Divine revelation. Law "came out of the king's mouth"; he gave it as Solomon gave judgment—embedded in the particular case, and upon the authority of Heaven as well as his own. A Divine limit to the Divine revealer was impossible, and there was no other source of law. But though there was no legal limit, there was a practical limit to subjection in (what may be called) the pagan part of human nature—the inseparable obstinacy of freemen. They NEVER would do exactly what they were told.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
The ruder sort of men—that is, men at ONE stage of rudeness—will sacrifice all they hope for, all they have, THEMSELVES, for what is called an idea—for some attraction which seems to transcend reality, which aspires to elevate men by an interest higher, deeper, wider than that of ordinary life. But this order of men are uninterested in the plain, palpable ends of government; they do not prize them; they do not in the least comprehend how they should be attained. It is very natural, therefore, that the most useful parts of the structure of government should by no means be those which excite the most reverence. The elements which excite the most easy reverence will be the THEATRICAL elements—those which appeal to the senses, which claim to be embodiments of the greatest human ideas, which boast in some cases of far more than human origin. That which is mystic in its claims; that which is occult in its mode of action; that which is brilliant to the eye; that which is seen vividly for a moment, and then is seen no more; that which is hidden and unhidden; that which is specious, and yet interesting, palpable in its seeming, and yet professing to be more than palpable in its results; this, howsoever its form may change, or however we may define it or describe it, is the sort of thing—the only sort—which yet comes home to the mass of men. So far from the dignified parts of a constitution being necessarily the most useful, they are likely, according to outside presumption, to be the least so; for they are likely to be adjusted to the lowest orders—those likely to care least and judge worst about what IS useful.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
The great bulk of treaties could wait a little without harm, and in the very few cases when urgent haste is necessary, an autumn session of Parliament could well be justified, for the occasion must be of grave and critical importance.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
It is by examining very bare, very dull, very unpromising things, that modern science has come to be what it is.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
In old times, letters were written for people who knew nothing and required to be told everything. Now they are written for people who know everything except the one thing which the letter is designed to explain to them. It is impossible in some respects not to regret the old practice. It is well that each age should write for itself a faithful account of its habitual existence.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
If France had more men of firm will, quiet composure, with a suspicion of enormous principle and a taste for moderate improvement: if a Whig party, in a word, were possible in France, France would be free.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
Everybody who has studied mathematics knows how many shadowy difficulties he seemed to have before he understood the problem, and how impossible it was when once the demonstration had flashed upon him, ever to comprehend those indistinct difficulties again, or to call up the mental confusion, that admitted them. So in these days, when we cannot by any effort drive out of our minds the notion of law, we cannot imagine the mind of one who had never known it, and who could not by any effort have conceived it.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
And though there are doubtless crises in affairs, dark and terrible moments, when a more creative intellect is needful to propose, a more dictatorial will is necessary to carry out, a sudden and daring resolution; though in times of inextricable confusion—perhaps the present is one of them—a more abstruse and disentangling intellect is required to untwist the raveled perplexities of a complicated world.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
Yet it must be allowed that Shakespeare was worldly, and the proof of it is, that he succeeded in the world. Possibly this is the point on which we are most richly indebted to tradition. We see generally indeed in Shakespeare's works the popular author, the successful dramatist; there is a life and play in his writings rarely to be found, except in those who have had habitual good luck, and who, by the tact of experience, feel the minds of their readers at every word, as a good rider feels the mouth of his horse.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
The truth is that the propensity of man to imitate what is before him is one of the strongest parts of his nature. And one sign of it is the great pain which we feel when our imitation has been unsuccessful. There is a cynical doctrine that most men would rather be accused of wickedness than of gaucherie. And this is but another way of saying that the bad copying of predominant manners is felt to be more of a disgrace than common consideration would account for its being, since gaucherie in all but extravagant cases is not an offence against religion or morals, but is simply bad imitation. We must not think that this imitation is voluntary, or even conscious. On the contrary, it has its seat mainly in very obscure parts of the mind, whose notions, so far from having been consciously produced, are hardly felt to exist; so far from being conceived beforehand, are not even felt at the time. The main seat of the imitative part of our nature is our belief, and the causes predisposing us to believe this, or disinclining us to believe that, are among the obscurest parts of our nature. But as to the imitative nature of credulity there can be no doubt. In 'Eothen' there is a capital description of how every sort of European resident in the East, even the shrewd merchant and 'the post-captain,' with his bright, wakeful eyes of commerce, comes soon to believe in witchcraft, and to assure you, in confidence, that there 'really is something in it.' He has never seen anything convincing himself, but he has seen those who have seen those who have seen those who have seen. In fact, he has lived in an atmosphere of infectious belief, and he has inhaled it. Scarcely any one can help yielding to the current infatuations of his sect or party. For a short time—say some fortnight—he is resolute; he argues and objects; but, day by day, the poison thrives, and reason wanes. What he hears from his friends, what he reads in the party organ, produces its effect. The plain, palpable conclusion which every one around him believes, has an influence yet greater and more subtle; that conclusion seems so solid and unmistakable; his own good arguments get daily more and more like a dream. Soon the gravest sage shares the folly of the party with which he acts, and the sect with which he worships.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
The least veracious man will tell truly the color of his coat, the hour of his dinner, the materials of his shoes.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
The heart and passions of men are moved by things more within their attainment; the essential nature is stirred by the essential life; by the real actual existence of love, and hope, and character, and by the real literature which takes in its spirit, and which is in some sort its undefecated essence.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Biographical Studies
The evils of a bad tax are quite sure to be pressed upon the ears of Parliament in season and out of season; the few persons who have to pay it are thoroughly certain to make themselves heard.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
The essence of a civilised age is, that administration requires the continued aid of legislation.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
The breed of ancient times was impaired for war by trade and luxury, but the modern breed is not so impaired.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
People, in all but the most favored times and places, are rooted to the places where they were born, think the thoughts of those places, can endure no other thoughts. The next parish even is suspected.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
Our Government cannot buy for minor clerks the best ability of the nation in the cheap currency of pure honour, and no Government is rich enough to buy very much of it in money.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution