“History shows how the human mind, which, at the dawn of civilisation, was a lyre of three chords, became in the progress of civilisation a lyre of seven chords. . . .”
G. H. Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind (Third Series) Problem the First — The Study of Psychology: Its Object, Scope, and Method (1879), p. 157.
“Much as the old world believed in pure blood, it had very little of it. Most historic nations conquered prehistoric nations, and though they massacred many, they did not massacre all. They enslaved the subject men, and they married the subject women. No doubt the whole bond of early society was the bond of descent; no doubt it was essential to the notions of a new nation that it should have had common ancestors; the modern idea that vicinity of habitation is the natural cement of civil union would have been repelled as an impiety if it could have been conceived as an idea.”
Walter Bagehot, Physics and Politics (1872).
On February 5, 1788, Robert Peel was born. He would become one of the most important of the United Kingdom’s prime ministers, ushering in some reforms that led to the liberalization of England in the 19th century. He is regarded as the father of the modern British police and as one of the founders of the modern Conservative Party. Robert Peel died in 1850.
On February 4, 1789, George Washington was unanimously elected as the first President of the United States, under the new Constitution, by the U.S. Electoral College.
On the same date five years later, the French legislature abolished slavery throughout all territories of the French Republic.
On February 3, 1783, Spain recognized United States independence.
Walter Bagehot (pronounced “badge-it”; pictured), famed editor of The Economist and author of Lombard Street, was born on this date in 1826.
“Ideas are forces: the existence of one determines our reception of others.”
G. H. Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind (Third Series) Problem the First — The Study of Psychology: Its Object, Scope, and Method, 1879.
“Commerce has brought nations closer, it has given them customs and habits that are almost identical; the heads of states may be enemies: the peoples are compatriots.”
Benjamin Comstant, The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with That of the Moderns (1819).
On February 2, 1887, Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, celebrated the first Groundhog Day. On the same day in 1976, the Groundhog Day gale hit the north-eastern United States and south-eastern Canada.
In 2009, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe officially devalued the Zimbabwean dollar for the third and final time, making Z$1 trillion now only Z$1 of the new currency, equivalent to Z$10 septillion before the first devaluation. Politicians in Zimbabwe looked up, saw their shadow, and realized that they had only a couple months more of their inflation binge. Indeed, the legalization of trading currencies, the previous month, had sealed the fate of Zimbabwe’s independent dollar. The Zimbabwean dollar was abandoned officially on the 9th of April, 2009.
“What is the Source out of which Taxes are actually paid? The answer is, out of the gains of Exchanges of some sort. Gifts aside, and thefts which are out of the question, no man ever did, no man ever can, pay his taxes, except out of the gains of some sales which he has already made.”
Arthur Latham Perry, Principles of Political Economy (1891).
On February 1, 1835, slavery was abolished in Mauritius. Six years later, in the American Civil War, Texas seceded from the United States. On this date in 1865, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, abolishing chattel slavery in the U. S.