24. Of Second Chambers
A Second Chamber acts as a drag. Progress is always uphill work. So we are at pains to provide a drag beforehand--for an uphill journey. There, in one word, you have the whole philosophy of Second Chambers. How, then, did the nations of Europe come to hamper their legislative systems with such a useless, such an illogical adjunct? In sackcloth and ashes, let us confess the truth--we English led them astray: on us the shame; to us the dishonour. Theorists, indeed (wise after the fact, as is the wont of theorists), have discovered or invented an imaginary function for Second Chambers. They are to preserve the people, it seems, from the fatal consequences of their own precipitancy. As though the people--you and I--the vast body of citizens, were a sort of foolish children, to be cl
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