You
would not cure the evil by resolving that there should be no more
monarchs, nor ministers of state, nor of the gospel; no interpreters
of law; no general officers; no public councils. You might change
the names. The things in some shape must remain. A certain quantum
of power must always exist in the community in some hands and under
some appellation. Wise men will apply their remedies to vices, not
to names; to the causes of evil which are permanent, not to the
occasional organs by which they act, and the transitory modes in which
they appear. Otherwise you will be wise historically, a fool in
practice. Seldom have two ages the same fashion in their pretexts
and the same modes of mischief. Wickedness is a little more inventive.
Whilst you are discussing fashion, the fashion is gone by. The very
same vice assumes a new body. The spirit transmigrates, and, far
from losing its principle of life by the change of its appearance,
it is renovated in its new organs with a fresh vigor of a juvenile
activity. It walks abroad, it continues its ravages, whilst you are
gibbeting the carcass or demolishing the tomb. You are terrifying
yourselves with ghosts and apparitions, whilst your house is the haunt
of robbers. It is thus with all those who, attending only to the shell
and husk of history, think they are waging war with intolerance,
pride, and cruelty, whilst, under color of abhorring the ill
principles of antiquated parties, they are authorizing and feeding the
same odious vices in different factions, and perhaps in worse.
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