I
cannot conceive how any man can have brought himself to that pitch
of presumption to consider his country as nothing but carte blanche-
upon which he may scribble whatever he pleases. A man full of warm,
speculative benevolence may wish his society otherwise constituted
than he finds it, but a good patriot and a true politician always
considers how he shall make the most of the existing materials of
his country. A disposition to preserve and an ability to improve,
taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. Everything else
is vulgar in the conception, perilous in the execution.
There are moments in the fortune of states when particular men are
called to make improvements by great mental exertion. In those
moments, even when they seem to enjoy the confidence of their prince
and country, and to be invested with full authority, they have not
always apt instruments. A politician, to do great things, looks for
a power what our workmen call a purchase; and if he finds that
power, in politics as in mechanics, he cannot be at a loss to apply
it. In the monastic institutions, in my opinion, was found a great
power for the mechanism of politic benevolence. There were revenues
with a public direction; there were men wholly set apart and dedicated
to public purposes, without any other than public ties and public
principles; men without the possibility of converting the estate of
the community into a private fortune; men denied to self-interests,
whose avarice is for some community; men to whom personal poverty is
honor, and implicit obedience stands in the place of freedom.
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