They who give the first shock to a state, are almost naturally the first overwhelmed in its ruin the fruits of public commotion are seldom enjoyed by him who was the first motor; he beats and disturbs the water for another’s net.  The unity and contexture of this monarchy, of this grand edifice, having been ripped and torn in her old age, by this thing called innovation, has since laid open a rent, and given sufficient admittance to such injuries:  the royal majesty with greater difficulty declines from the summit to the middle, then it falls and tumbles headlong from the middle to the bottom.  But if the inventors do the greater mischief, the imitators are more vicious to follow examples of which they have felt and punished both the horror and the offence.  And if there can be any degree of honour in ill-doing, these last must yield to the others the glory of contriving, and the courage of making the first attempt.  All sorts of new disorders easily draw, from this primitive and ever-flowing fountain, examples and precedents to trouble and discompose our government:  we read in our very laws, made for the remedy of this first evil, the beginning and pretences of all sorts of wicked enterprises; and that befalls us, which Thucydides said of the civil wars of his time, that, in favour of public vices, they gave them new and more plausible names for their excuse, sweetening and disguising their true titles; which must be done, forsooth, to reform our conscience and belief: 

“Honesta oratio est;”

          ["Fine words truly.”—­Ter.  And., i.  I, 114.]

but the best pretence for innovation is of very dangerous consequence: 

          “Aden nihil motum ex antiquo probabile est.”

     ["We are ever wrong in changing ancient ways.”—­Livy, xxxiv. 54]

And freely to speak my thoughts, it argues a strange self-love and great presumption to be so fond of one’s own opinions, that a public peace must be overthrown to establish them, and to introduce so many inevitable mischiefs, and so dreadful a corruption of manners, as a civil war and the mutations of state consequent to it, always bring in their train, and to introduce them, in a thing of so high concern, into the bowels of one’s own country.  Can there be worse husbandry than to set up so many certain and knowing vices against errors that are only contested and disputable?  And are there any worse sorts of vices than those committed against a man’s own conscience, and the natural light of his own reason?  The Senate, upon the dispute betwixt it and the people about the administration of their religion, was bold enough to return this evasion for current pay: 

          “Ad deos id magis, quam ad se, pertinere:  ipsos visuros,
          ne sacra sua polluantur;”

     ["Those things belong to the gods to determine than to them; let the
     gods, therefore, take care that their sacred mysteries were not
     profaned.”—­Livy, x. 6.]