All institutions fall short of their ideal form

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"The whole question really depends on our understanding of the relation of abstract and concrete. It is plain, as Green says, that the idea of a common good has never been the sole influence operative in the formation or maintenance of States. And, in so far as it has operated at all, it has done so in very imperfect forms." -- Bernard Bosanquet, The Philosophical Theory of the State, p. 289

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