and cheating hope, have all the wide field of imagination in which they may expatiate with little or no oppofition. At once to preserve and to reform is quite another thing. When the useful parts of an old establishment are kept, and what is fuperadded is to be fitted to what is retained, a vigorous mind, fteady perfevering attention, various powers of comparison and combination, and the resources of an understanding fruitful in expedients are to be exercised; they are to be exercised in a continued conflict with the combined force of oppofite vices; with the obftinacy that rejects all improvement, and the levity that is fatigued and difgufted with every thing of which it is in poffeffion. But you may object "A procefs of this kind is flow. It is not fit for an "affembly, which glories in performing in a few "months the work of ages. Such a mode of reforming, "poffibly might take up many years." Without queftion it might; and it ought. It is one of the excellencies of a method in which time is amongst the affiftants, that its operation is flow, and in fome cafes almost imperceptible. If circumfpection and caution are a part of wisdom, when we work only upon inanimate matter, furely they become a part of duty too, when the fubject of our demolition and conftruction is not brick and timber, but fentient beings, by the fudden alteration of whofe ftate, condition, and habits, multitudes may be rendered miferable. But it feems as if it were the prevalent opinion in Paris, that an unfeeling heart, and an undoubting confidence, are the fole qualifications for a perfect legislator. Far different are my ideas of that high office. The true lawgiver ought to have an heart full of fenfibility. He ought to love and refpect his kind, and to fear himself. It may be allowed to his temperament to catch his ultimate object with an intuitive glance; but his movements towards it ought to be deliberate. Political arrangement, as it is a work for focial ends, is to be only wrought by focial means. There mind must confpire with mind. Time is required to produce that union of minds which alone can produce all the good we aim at. Our patience will atchieve more than than our force. If I might venture to appeal to what is fo much out of fashion in Paris, I mean to experience, I should tell you, that in my courfe I have known, and, according to my measure, have co-operated with great men; and I have never yet feen any plan which has not been mended by the obfervations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business. By a flow but well-fuftained progress, the effect of each step is watched; the good or ill fuccefs of the firft, gives light to us in the fecond; and so, from light to light, we are conducted with fafety through the whole feries. We fee, that the parts of the fyftem do not clash. The evils latent in the most promifing contrivances are provided for as they arife. One advantage is as little as poffible facrificed to another. We compenfate, we reconcile, we balance. We are enabled to unite into a confiftent whole the various anomalies and contending principles that are found in the minds and affairs of men. From hence arises, not an excellence in fimplicity, but one far fuperior, an excellence in compofition. Where the great interests of mankind are concerned through a long fucceffion of generations, that fucceffion ought to be admitted into fome fhare in the councils which are fo deeply to affect them. If juftice 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 beft legiflators have been often fatisfied with the establishment of fome fure, folid, and ruling principle in government; a power like that which fome of the philofophers 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 prefiding 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 hafte, and their defiance of the process of nature, they are delivered over blindly to every projector and adventurer, to every alchymist and empiric. They despair of turning to account any thing that is common. Diet is nothing in their their fyftem of remedy. The worst of it is, that this their defpair of curing common diftempers by regular methods, arifes not only from defect of comprehenfion, but I fear, from fome malignity of difpofition. Your legiflators seem to have taken their opinions of all profeffions, ranks, and offices, from the declamations and buffooneries of fatirifts; who would themselves be astonished if they were held to the letter of their own descriptions. By liftening only to thefe, your leaders regard all things only on the fide of their vices and faults, and view thofe vices and faults under every colour of exaggeration. It is undoubtedly true, though it may feem paradoxical; but in general, those who are habitually employed in finding and displaying faults, are unqualified for the work of reformation; becaufe 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 thofe things. By hating vices too much, they come to love men too little. It is therefore not wonderful, that they fhould be indifpofed and unable to ferve them. From hence arifes the complexional difpofition of fome of your guides to pull every thing in pieces. At this malicious game they difplay the whole of their quadrimanous activity. As to the reft, the paradoxes of eloquent writers, brought forth purely as a fport of fancy, to try their talents, to rouze attention, and excite furprize, are taken up by thefe gentlemen, not in the fpirit of the original authors, as means of cultivating their tafte, and improving their ftyle. These paradoxes become with them ferious grounds of action, upon which they proceed in regulating the most impor tant concerns of the ftate. Cicero ludicrously defcribes Cato as endeavouring to act in the commonwealth upon the school paradoxes which exercised the wits of the junior ftudents in the ftoic philofphy. If this was true of Cato, these gentlemen copy after him in the manner of some perfons who lived about his time-pede nudo Catonem. Mr. Hume told me, that he had from Rouffeau himself the fecret of his principles of compofition. That acute, though eccentric, obferver had perceived, that to ftrike and intereft the public, the marvellous must be produced; that the marvellous of the heathen mythology had long " fince loft its effect; that giants, magicians, fairies, and heroes of romance which fucceeded, had exhaufted the portion of credulity which belonged to their age; that now nothing was left to a writer but that fpecies of the marvellous, which might still be produced, and with as great an effect as ever, though in another way; that is, the marvellous in life, in manners, in characters, and in extraordinary fituations, giving rife to new and unlooked for ftrokes in politics and morals. I believe, that were Rouffeau alive, and in one of his lucid intervals, he would be shocked at the practical phrenzy of his scholars, who in their paradoxes are servile imitators; and even in their incredulity difcover an implicit faith. Men who undertake confiderable things, even in a regular way, ought to give us ground to prefume ability. But the phyfician of the state, who, not fatisfied with the cure of diftempers, undertakes to regenerate constitutions, ought to fhew uncommon powers. Some very unusual appearances of wifdom ought to display themselves on the face of the defigns of those who appeal to no practice, and who copy after no model. Has any fuch been manifefted? Ifhall take a view (it fhall for the fubject be a very fhort one) of what the affembly has done, with regard, firft, to the conftitution of the legislature; in the next place, to that of the executive power; then to that of the judicature; afterwards to the model of the army; and conclude with the fyftem of finance, to fee whether we can discover in any part of their schemes the portentous ability, which may justify these bold undertakers in the fuperiority which they affume over mankind. It is in the model of the fovereign and prefiding part of this new republic, that we should expect their grand difplay. Here they were to prove their title to their proud demands. For the plan itself at large, and for the reasons on which it is grounded, I refer to the journals of the affembly of the 29th of September 1789, and to the fubfequent proceedings which have made any alterations in the plan. So far as in a matter fomewhat confused I can fee light, the fyftem remains fubftantially as it has been originally framed. My few remarks will be fuch as regard its fpirit, its tendency, and its fitnefs for framing à popular Z a popular commonwealth, which they profefs theirs to be, fuited to the ends for which any commonwealth, and particularly fuch a commonwealth, is made. At the fame time, I mean to confider its confiftency with itself, and its own principles. Old eftablishments are tried by their effects. If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we prefume the reft. We conclude that to be good from whence good is derived. In old establishments, various correctives have been found for their aberrations from theory. Indeed they are the refults of various neceffities and expediences. They are not often constructed after any theory; theories are rather drawn from them. In them we often fee the end best obtained, where the means feem not perfectly reconcileable to what we may fancy was the original scheme. The means taught by experience may be better fuited to political ends than those contrived in the original project. They again re-act upon the primitive conftitution, and fometimes improve the design itself from which they feem to have departed. I think all this might be curiously exemplified in the British constitution. At worst, the errors and deviations of every kind in reckoning are found and computed, and the fhip proceeds in her course. This is the cafe of old establishments; but in a new and merely theoretic fyftem, it is expected that every contrivance fhall appear on the face of it, to answer its end; especially where the projectors are no way embarraffed with an endeavour to accommodate the new building to an old one, either in the walls or on the foundations. The French builders, clearing away as mere rubbish whatever they found, and, like their ornamental gardeners, forming every thing into an exact level, propofe to reft the whole local and general legislature on three bafes of three different kinds; one geometrical, one arithmetical, and the third financial; the first of which they call the bafis of territory; the fecond, the bafis of population; and the third, the basis of contribution. For the accomplishment of the first of these purposes they divide the area of their country into eighty-one pieces, regularly fquare, of eighteen leagues by eighteen. These large divifions. |