A good parson once said that where mystery begins religion ends. Cannot I say, as truly at least, of human laws, that where mystery begins justice ends?

Vice incapacitates a man from all public duty; it withers the powers of his under- standing, and makes his mind paralytic.

The science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori. Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in that practical science, because the real effects of moral causes are not always immediate.

Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.

Of this stamp is the cant of, Not men, but measures.

Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.

By this unprincipled facility of changing the state as often, and as much, and in as many ways as there are floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth would be broken. No one generation could link with the other. Men would become little better than the flies of a summer.