but an abject fubmiffion to their occafional will extinguifhing thereby, in all those who ferve: them, all moral principle, all fenfe of dignity, all ufe of judgment, and all confiftency of character, whilft by the very fame procefs they give themselves up a proper, a fuitable, but a most contemptible prey to the fervile ambition of populár fycophants or courtly flatterers.

When the people have emptied themselves of all the luft of felfifh will, which without religion it is utterly impoffible they ever fhould, when they are confcious that they exercife, and. exercife perhaps in an higher link of the order of delegation, the power, which to be legitimate muít be according to that eternal immutable law, in which will and reafon are the fame, they will be more careful how they place power in bafe and incapable hands. In their nomination to office, they will not appoint to the exercife of authority, as to a pitiful job, but as to an holy function; not according to their fordid felfifh intereft, nor to their wanton caprice, nor to their arbitrary will; but they will confer that power (which any man may well tremble to give or to receive) on those only, in whom they may difcern that predominant proportion of active virtue and wisdom, taken together and fitted to the charge, fuch, as in the great and inevitable mixed mafs of human imperfections and infirmities, is to be found.

When they are habitually convinced that no evil can be acceptable, either in the act or the permiflion, to him whofe effence is good, they

will be better able to extirpate out of the minds of all magiftrates, civil, ecclefiaftical, or military, any thing that bears the leaft refemblance to a proud and lawless domination.

a

But one of the first and most leading princi ples on which the commonwealth and the laws are confecrated, is left the temporary poffeffors and life-renters in it, unmindful of what they have received from their ancestors, or of what is due to their pofterity, should act as if they were the entire masters; that they fhould not think it amongst their rights to cut off the entail, or commit waste on the inheritance, by destroying at their pleasure the whole original fabric of their fociety; hazarding to leave to thofe who come after them, a ruin inftead of an habitation-and teaching thefe fucceffors as little to refpect their contrivances, as they had themfelves refpected the inftitutions of their forefathers. By this unprincipled facility of changing the ftate as often, and as much, and in as many ways as there are floating fancies or fafhions, the whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth would be broken. No one generation could link with the other. Men would become little better than the flies of a fummer.

And first of all the fcience of jurifprudence, the pride of the human intellect, which, with all its defects, redundancies, and errors, is the collected reafon of ages, combining the prin ciples of original juftice with the infinite variety of human concerns, as a heap of old exploded errors, would be no longer ftudied.

Perfonal

Perfonal felf-fufficiency and arrogance (the cer tain attendants upon all thofe who have never experienced a wifdom greater than their own) would ufurp the tribunal. Of courfe, n certain laws, establishing invariable grounds of hope and fear, would keep the actions of men in a certain courfe, or direct them to a certain end. Nothing ftable in the modes of holding property, or exercifing function, could form a folid ground on which any parent could fpeculate in the education of his offspring, or in a choice for their future establishment in the world. No principles would be early worked into the habits. As foon as the most able inftructor had completed his laborious course of inftitution, instead of fending forth his pupil, accomplished in a virtuous difcipline, fitted to procure him attention and refpect, in his place in fociety, he would find every thing altered; and that he had turned out a poor creature to the contempt and derifion of the world, ignorant of the true grounds of eftimation. Who would infure a tender and delicate fenfe of honour to beat almoft with the first pulfes of the heart, when no man could know what would be the teft of honour in a nation, continually varying the standard of its coin? No part of life would retain its acquifitions. Barbarifm with regard to fcience and literature, unskilfulness with regard to arts and manufactures, would infailibly fucceed to the want of a steady education and fettled principle; and thus the commonwealth itself would, in a few generations, crumble away, be difconnected into the

duft

duft and powder of individuality, and at length difperfed to all the winds of heaven.

1

To avoid therefore the evils of inconftancy and verfatility, ten thousand times worfe than those of obftinacy and the blindest prejudice, we have confecrated the ftate, that no man fhould approach to look into defects or corruptions but with due caution; that he should never dream of beginning its reformation by its fubverfion; that he fhould approach to the faults of the ftate as to the wounds of a father, with pious awe and trembling follicitude. By this wife prejudice we are taught to look with horror on those children of their country who are prompt rafhly to hack that aged parent in pieces, and put him into the kettle of magicians, in hopes that by their poisonous weeds, and wild incantations, they may regenerate the paternal conftitution, and renovate their father's life.

Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occafional intereft may be diffolved at pleafure-but the ftate ought not to be confidered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, callico or tobacco, or fome other fuch low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary intereft, and to be diffolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence; because it is not a partnership in things fubfervient only to the grofs animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all fcience; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the

ends

ends of fuch a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, thofe who are dead, and thofe who are to be born. Each contract of each particular state is but a claufe in the great primæval contract of eternal fociety, linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the vifible and invifible world, according to a fixed compact fanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and all moral natures, each in their appointed place. This law is not subject to the will of thofe, who by an obligation above them, and infinitely fuperior, are bound to fubmit their will to that law. The municipal corporations of that univerfal kingdom are not morally at liberty at their pleafure, and on their fpeculations of a contingent improvement, wholly to feparate and tear afunder the bands of their fubordinate community, and to diffolve it into an unfocial, uncivil, unconnected chaos of elementary principles. It is the firft and fupreme neceffity only, a neceffity that is not chofen but choofes, a neceffity paramount to deliberation, that admits no difcuffion, and demands no evidence, which alone can justify a refort to anarchy. This neceflity is no exception to the rule; becaufe this neceffity itself is a part too of that moral and phyfical difpofition of things to which man must be obedient by confent or force; but if that which is only fubmiffion to neceffity should be made the object of choice, the law is broken,