The nature of man is
intricate; the objects of society are of the greatest possible
complexity; and, therefore, no simple disposition or direction of
power can be suitable either to man's nature or to the quality of
his affairs. When I hear the simplicity of contrivance aimed at and
boasted of in any new political constitutions, I am at no loss to
decide that the artificers are grossly ignorant of their trade or
totally negligent of their duty. The simple governments are
fundamentally defective, to say no worse of them. If you were to
contemplate society in but one point of view, all these simple modes
of polity are infinitely captivating. In effect each would answer
its single end much more perfectly than the more complex is able to
attain all its complex purposes. But it is better that the whole
should be imperfectly and anomalously answered than that, while some
parts are provided for with great exactness, others might be totally
neglected or perhaps materially injured by the over-care of a favorite
member.
The pretended rights of these theorists are all extremes; and in
proportion as they are metaphysically true, they are morally and
politically false. The rights of men are in a sort of middle,
incapable of definition, but not impossible to be discerned. The
rights of men in governments are their advantages; and these are often
in balances between differences of good, in compromises sometimes
between good and evil, and sometimes between evil and evil.
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