But one of the first and most leading principles on which the
commonwealth and the laws are consecrated, is lest the temporary
possessors and life-renters in it, unmindful of what they have received
from their ancestors, or of what is due to their posterity, should
act as if they were the entire masters; that they should not think
it amongst their rights to cut off the entail, or commit waste on the
inheritance, by destroying at their pleasure the whole original fabric
of their society; hazarding to leave to those who come after them a ruin
instead of an habitation--and teaching these successors as little
to respect their contrivances, as they had themselves respected the
institutions of their forefathers. 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.
And first of all, the science of jurisprudence, the pride of the human
intellect, which, with all its defects, redundancies, and errors, is the
collected reason of ages, combining the principles of original justice
with the infinite variety of human concerns, as a heap of old exploded
errors, would be no longer studied. Personal self-sufficiency and
arrogance (the certain attendants upon all those who have never
experienced a wisdom greater than their own) would usurp the tribunal.
Of course no certain laws, establishing invariable grounds of hope and
fear, would keep the actions of men in a certain course, or direct them
to a certain end. Nothing stable in the modes of holding property, or
exercising function, could form a solid ground on which any parent could
speculate in the education of his offspring, or in a choice for their
future establishment in the world. No principles would be early worked
into the habits. As soon as the most able instructor had completed his
laborious course of institution, instead of sending forth his pupil,
accomplished in a virtuous discipline, fitted to procure him attention
and respect in his place in society, he would find everything altered;
and that he had turned out a poor creature to the contempt and derision
of the world, ignorant of the true grounds of estimation. Who would
insure a tender and delicate sense of honour to beat almost with the
first pulses of the heart, when no man could know what would be the test
of honour in a nation, continually varying the standard of its coin?
No part of life would retain its acquisitions. Barbarism with regard
to science and literature, unskilfulness with regard to arts and
manufactures, would infallibly succeed to the want of a steady education
and settled principle; and thus the commonwealth itself would, in a few
generations, crumble away, be disconnected into the dust and powder of
individuality, and at length dispersed to all the winds of heaven. To
avoid therefore the evils of inconstancy and versatility, ten thousand
times worse than those of obstinacy and the blindest prejudice, we have
consecrated the state, that no man should approach to look into its
defects or corruptions but with due caution; that he should never dream
of beginning its reformation by its subversion; that he should approach
to the faults of the state as to the wounds of a father, with pious awe,
and trembling solicitude. By this wise prejudice we are taught to look
with horror on those children of their country, who are prompt rashly
to hack that aged parent in pieces, and put him into the kettle
of magicians, in hopes that by their poisonous weeds, and wild
incantations, they may regenerate the paternal constitution, and
renovate their father's life.