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Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society by Walter Bagehot
page 44 of 176 (25%)
society is (for all but a petty skilled minority) a necessary of
life, and all the unincreasable land being occupied, a man who is
turned out of his holding is turned out of this world, and must die.
And our notion of written leases is as out of place in a world
without writing and without reading as a House of Commons among
Andaman Islanders. Only one check, one sole shield for life and
good, is then possible;--usage. And it is but too plain how in such
places and periods men cling to customs because customs alone stand
between them and starvation.

A still more powerful cause co-operated, if a cause more powerful
can be imagined. Dryden had a dream of an early age, 'when wild in
woods the noble savage ran;' but 'when lone in woods the cringing
savage crept' would have been more like all we know of that early,
bare, painful period. Not only had they no comfort, no convenience,
not the very beginnings of an epicurean life, but their mind within
was as painful to them as the world without. It was full of fear. So
far as the vestiges inform us, they were afraid of everything; they
were afraid of animals, of certain attacks by near tribes, and of
possible inroads from far tribes. But, above all things, they were
frightened of 'the world;' the spectacle of nature filled them with
awe and dread. They fancied there were powers behind it which must
be pleased, soothed, flattered, and this very often in a number of
hideous ways. We have too many such religions, even among races of
great cultivation. Men change their religions more slowly than they
change anything else; and accordingly we have religions 'of the
ages'--(it is Mr. Jowett who so calls them)--of the 'ages before
morality;' of ages of which the civil life, the common maxims, and
all the secular thoughts have long been dead. 'Every reader of the
classics,' said Dr. Johnson, 'finds their mythology tedious.' In
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