This shows, in my opinion, how very quick and awakened all men ought to
be who are looked up to by the public, and who deserve that confidence,
to prevent a surprise on their opinions, when dogmas are spread, and
projects pursued, by which the foundations of society may be affected.
Before they listen even to moderate alterations in the government
of their country, they ought to take care that principles are not
propagated for that purpose, which are too big for their object.
Doctrines limited in their present application, and wide in their
general principles, are never meant to be confined to what they at first
pretend. If I were to form a prognostic of the effect of the present
machinations on the people, from their sense of any grievance they
suffer under this constitution, my mind would be at ease. But there is
a wide difference between the multitude, when they act against their
government from a sense of grievance, or from zeal for some opinions.
When men are thoroughly possessed with that zeal, it is difficult to
calculate its force. It is certain that its power is by no means
in exact proportion to its reasonableness. It must always have been
discoverable by persons of reflection, but it is now obvious to the
world, that a theory concerning government may become as much a cause of
fanaticism as a dogma in religion. There is a boundary to men's passions
when they act from feeling; none when they are under the influence of
imagination. Remove a grievance, and, when men act from feeling, you go
a great way towards quieting a commotion. But the good or bad conduct
of a government, the protection men have enjoyed, or the oppression
they have suffered, under it, are of no sort of moment when a faction,
proceeding upon speculative grounds, is thoroughly heated against
its form. When a man is, from system, furious against monarchy or
episcopacy, the good conduct of the monarch or the bishop has no other
effect than further to irritate the adversary. He is provoked at it, as
furnishing a plea for preserving the thing which he wishes to destroy.
His mind will be heated as much by the sight of a sceptre, a mace, or a
verge, as if he had been daily bruised and wounded by these symbols of
authority. Mere spectacles, mere names, will become sufficient causes to
stimulate the people to war and tumult.