Conservative's Consolations
civilization, which cannot afford to be despotic. Mr. Bagehot, whose cynicism held the wisdom of restraint, maintained that the "cake of custom" should be stiff enough to make change of any kind difficult, but never so stiff as to make it impossible. The progress achieved under these conditions would be, he thought, both durable and endurable. "Without a long-accumulated and inherited tendency to discourage originality, society would never have gained the cohesion requisite for effecting common action against its external foes." Deference to usage is a uniting and sustaining bond. Nations which reject it are apt to get off the track, and have to get back, or be put back, with difficulty and disaster. They do not afford desirable dwelling-places for thoughtful human beings, but they give notable lessons to humanity. Innovations to which we are not committed are illuminating things.
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