Richard Holt Hutton

Name: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900
Author: Richard Holt Hutton

Dictionary of National Biography… (1885)

Summary

“Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900”, published in 1885, is a work by Richard Holt Hutton. It explores elements such as Bagehot, the House of Lords and the House of Commons.

Quotes from Dictionary of National Biography… (Richard Holt Hutton)

Richard Holt Hutton, Dictionary of National Biography… (1885)

“ Bagehot held that a representative assembly which, like the House of Representatives in the United States, cannot effect any great and notable change by its resolutions, is bound to be something of a cipher, and that the people will never care enough about what such an assembly does, to take the pains requisite for selecting the best men. Nay, more, the best men themselves will not fix their ambition on becoming members of an assembly which exerts so little conspicuous influence on the course of national events. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Richard Holt Hutton, Dictionary of National Biography… (1885)

“ Bagehot, though no admirer of the House of Lords, is, on the whole, a decided partisan of the House of Lords as a revising assembly; but he earnestly desired its reconstitution by the help of a considerable number of distinguished life-peers. 'Most lords,' he said pithily, 'are feeble and forlorn.' The young peers are seldom aware that 'business is really more agreeable than pleasure.' Moreover, they are timorous creatures, who do not know when it is safe to resist an apparent current of popular opinion any more than they know when it is fatal to attempt to resist it. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Richard Holt Hutton, Dictionary of National Biography… (1885)

“ The race of men who cannot help acting together if they would, are sure to get the better over any race whose combination for co-operative actions is loose and imperfect; hence his preference for what he called political stupidity — the dull fixed habit of acting all in one way as the English do — to the sprightly divergences and differences of opinion which make it so difficult for the French to know what they really wish, or whether they have any wish in common by which the masses are profoundly affected. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Richard Holt Hutton, Dictionary of National Biography… (1885)

“ He held that the only security for people's doing their duty was 'that they should not know anything else to do,' and that the only guarantee for political stability was that they should be incapable of comprehending any other condition of political life than that to which they had been accustomed. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Richard Holt Hutton, Dictionary of National Biography… (1885)

“ But with all this depreciation of the peers, Bagehot thought that the existence of the House of Lords tended to maintain the respect of the English people at large for the influence of wealth and culture in the community, and to prevent hungry and ignorant men from dictating foolish revolutionary measures to hungry and ignorant crowds of followers. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Richard Holt Hutton, Dictionary of National Biography… (1885)

“ He held that for this purpose a good habit or rule was better than a bad habit or rule; but that even a bad habit or rule thoroughly impressed on the whole people, and inducing a common life, was better than a good habit or rule which had not bitten deeply into the life of the people and effectually moulded them in a single mould. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Richard Holt Hutton, Dictionary of National Biography… (1885)

“ Bagehot held that in our own day that respect for action which was characteristic of the times when action was needed to form and mould the national character, is excessive. He thought that reserve of judgment, and especially reserve of resolve, is not half common enough. Men are over-eager to be doing what they are not sure of approving even when they have done it. The military instincts inherited from the age of drill precipitate us into all sorts of premature action, where we really want discussion and suspense of judgment till discussion has done its perfect work. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Richard Holt Hutton, Dictionary of National Biography… (1885)

“ They are letters of singular force and vivacity, though marked by more of that cynicism not uncommon in young men than any of his later writings. His great thesis was that 'stupidity' is the essential condition of political freedom, and that the French were a great deal too clever to be free. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Richard Holt Hutton, Dictionary of National Biography… (1885)

“ Besides these works a volume on the 'Depreciation of Silver,' which discusses the causes of the fall in silver between 1866 and 1875, and which was corrected for the press by himself, appeared immediately after his death in 1877; and a volume of essays on political economy, called 'Economic Studies,' part of which had been published during his lifetime, while part was found among his papers, was published in 1880; Bagehot also published some essays on parliamentary reform, which were republished in 1883. ”

Richard Holt Hutton

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