So long as the human heart is strong and the human reason weak, Royalty will be strong because it appeals to diffused feeling, and Republics weak because they appeal to understanding.

Walter Bagehot (1826–1877), a leading Victorian journalist and constitutional thinker, developed this idea while analyzing why constitutional monarchies retained popular loyalty even as democratic institutions expanded. In his writings on the English constitution, he distinguishes between the “dignified” parts of government (which command reverence and emotion) and the “efficient” parts (which actually govern). The remark reflects his broader argument that monarchy’s ceremonial and symbolic power works on mass sentiment, whereas republican forms more directly invite rational scrutiny—an appeal that is harder to sustain with large publics and everyday political attention.

Bagehot argues that political legitimacy often rests more on emotion than on reason. “Royalty” endures because it concentrates tradition, spectacle, and personal loyalty into a single visible symbol that can be felt widely (“diffused feeling”). Republics, by contrast, ask citizens to value abstract principles, procedures, and arguments—an “appeal to understanding” that demands sustained rational engagement. The quote is not simply anti-republican; it is a realist diagnosis of mass politics: institutions that harness sentiment can be more stable than those that rely on continuous public reasoning. It also implies a tension between democratic accountability and the psychological need for symbols that unify and reassure.