Old establishments are tried by their effects. If the people are happy,
united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. 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 results of various necessities and expediencies. They are
not often constructed after any theory; theories are rather drawn from
them. In them we often see the end best obtained, where the means seem
not perfectly reconcilable to what we may fancy was the original scheme.
The means taught by experience may be better suited to political ends
than those contrived in the original project. They again re-act upon the
primitive constitution; and sometimes improve the design itself, from
which they seem 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
ship proceeds in her course. This is the case of old establishments;
but in a new and merely theoretic system, it is expected that every
contrivance shall appear, on the face of it, to answer its ends;
especially where the projectors are no way embarrassed with an endeavour
to accommodate the new building to an old one, either in the walls or on
the foundations.