I firmly believed that in this way I
should much better succeed in the conduct of my life, than if I built only
upon old foundations, and leaned upon principles which, in my youth, I had
taken upon trust. For although I recognized various difficulties in this
undertaking, these were not, however, without remedy, nor once to be
compared with such as attend the slightest reformation in public affairs.
Large bodies, if once overthrown, are with great difficulty set up again,
or even kept erect when once seriously shaken, and the fall of such is
always disastrous. Then if there are any imperfections in the
constitutions of states (and that many such exist the diversity of
constitutions is alone sufficient to assure us), custom has without doubt
materially smoothed their inconveniences, and has even managed to steer
altogether clear of, or insensibly corrected a number which sagacity could
not have provided against with equal effect; and, in fine, the defects are
almost always more tolerable than the change necessary for their removal;
in the same manner that highways which wind among mountains, by being much
frequented, become gradually so smooth and commodious, that it is much
better to follow them than to seek a straighter path by climbing over the
tops of rocks and descending to the bottoms of precipices.
Hence it is that I cannot in any degree approve of those restless and busy
meddlers who, called neither by birth nor fortune to take part in the
management of public affairs, are yet always projecting reforms; and if I
thought that this tract contained aught which might justify the suspicion
that I was a victim of such folly, I would by no means permit its
publication.
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