Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us
in that practical science, because the real effects of moral causes
are not always immediate; but that which in the first instance is
prejudicial may be excellent in its remoter operation, and its
excellence may arise even from the ill effects it produces in the
beginning. The reverse also happens: and very plausible schemes,
with very pleasing commencements, have often shameful and lamentable
conclusions. In states there are often some obscure and almost
latent causes, things which appear at first view of little moment,
on which a very great part of its prosperity or adversity may most
essentially depend. The science of government being therefore so
practical in itself and intended for such practical purposes- a matter
which requires experience, and even more experience than any person
can gain in his whole life, however sagacious and observing he may be-
it is with infinite caution that any man ought to venture upon pulling
down an edifice which has answered in any tolerable degree for ages
the common purposes of society, or on building it up again without
having models and patterns of approved utility before his eyes.
These metaphysic rights entering into common life, like rays of
light which pierce into a dense medium, are by the laws of nature
refracted from their straight line. Indeed, in the gross and
complicated mass of human passions and concerns the primitive rights
of men undergo such a variety of refractions and reflections that it
becomes absurd to talk of them as if they continued in the
simplicity of their original direction.
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