principles that are found in the minds and affairs of men.  From hence arises, not an excellence in simplicity, but one far superior, an excellence in composition.  Where the great interests of mankind are concerned through a long succession of generations, that succession ought to be admitted into some share in the councils which are so deeply to affect them.  If justice requires this, the work itself requires the aid of more minds than one age can furnish.  It is from this view of things that the best legislators have been often satisfied with the establishment of some sure, solid, and ruling principle in government,—­a power like that which some of the philosophers have called a plastic Nature; and having fixed the principle, they have left it afterwards to its own operation.

To proceed in this manner, that is, to proceed with a presiding principle and a prolific energy, is with me the criterion of profound wisdom.  What your politicians think the marks of a bold, hardy genius are only proofs of a deplorable want of ability.  By their violent haste, and their defiance of the process of Nature, they are delivered over blindly to every projector and adventurer, to every alchemist and empiric.  They despair of turning to account anything that is common.  Diet is nothing in their system of remedy.  The worst of it is, that this their despair of curing common distempers by regular methods arises not only from defect of comprehension, but, I fear, from some malignity of disposition.  Your legislators seem to have taken their opinions of all professions, ranks, and offices from the declamations and buffooneries of satirists,—­who would themselves be astonished, if they were held to the letter of their own descriptions.  By listening only to these, your leaders regard all things only on the side of their vices and faults, and view those vices and faults under every color of exaggeration.  It is undoubtedly true, though it may seem paradoxical,—­but, in general, those who are habitually employed in finding and displaying faults are unqualified for the work of reformation; because their minds are not only unfurnished with patterns of the fair and good, but by habit they come to take no delight in the contemplation of those things.  By hating vices too much, they come to love men too little.  It is therefore not wonderful that they should be indisposed and unable to serve them.  From hence arises the complexional disposition of some of your guides to pull everything in pieces.  At this malicious game they display the whole of their quadrimanous activity.  As to the rest, the paradoxes of eloquent writers, brought forth purely as a sport of fancy, to try their talents, to rouse attention, and excite surprise, are taken up by these gentlemen, not in the spirit of the original authors, as means of cultivating their taste and improving their style:  these paradoxes become with them serious grounds of action, upon which they proceed in regulating the most important concerns of the state.