I never govern myself--no rational man ever did govern himself--by
abstractions and universals. I do not put abstract ideas wholly out of
any question, because I well know, that under that name I should
dismiss principles; and that without the guide and light of sound,
well-understood principles, all reasonings in politics, as in everything
else, would be only a confused jumble of particular facts and details,
without the means of drawing out any sort of theoretical or practical
conclusion. A statesman differs from a professor in an university:
the latter has only the general view of society; the former--the
statesmen--has a number of circumstances to combine with those general
ideas, and to take into his consideration. Circumstances are infinite,
are infinitely combined; are variable and transient; he who does not
take them into consideration is not erroneous, but stark mad--dat operam
ut cum ratione insaniat--he is metaphysically mad. A statesman, never
losing sight of principles, is to be guided by circumstances; and
judging contrary to the exigencies of the moment he may ruin his country
for ever.
I go on this ground, that government, representing the society, has a
general superintending control over all the actions, and over all the
publicly propagated doctrines of men, without which it never could
provide adequately for all the wants of society; but then it is to use
this power with an equitable discretion, the only bond of sovereign
authority. For it is not, perhaps, so much by the assumption of unlawful
powers, as by the unwise or unwarrantable use of those which are most
legal, that governments oppose their true end and object; for there is
such a thing as tyranny as well as usurpation. You can hardly state to
me a case, to which legislature is the most confessedly competent, in
which, if the rules of benignity and prudence are not observed, the most
mischievous and oppressive things may not be done. So that after all,
it is a moral and virtuous discretion, and not any abstract theory
of right, which keeps governments faithful to their ends. Crude,
unconnected truths are in the world of practice what falsehoods are in
theory.
A reasonable, prudent, provident, and moderate coercion may be a means
of preventing acts of extreme ferocity and rigour; for by propagating
excessive and extravagant doctrines, such extravagant disorders take
place, as require the most perilous and fierce corrections to oppose
them. It is not morally true, that we are bound to establish in every
country that form of religion which in OUR minds is most agreeable to
truth, and conduces most to the eternal happiness of mankind. In the
same manner it is not true that we are, against the conviction of our
own judgment, to establish a system of opinions and practises directly
contrary to those ends, only because some majority of the people,
told by the head, may prefer it. No conscientious man would willingly
establish what he knew to be false and mischievous in religion, or in
anything else. No wise man, on the contrary, would tyrannically set up
his own sense so as to reprobate that of the great prevailing body
of the community, and pay no regard to the established opinions
and prejudices of mankind or refuse to them the means of securing a
religious instruction suitable to these prejudices. A great deal depends
on the state in which you find men.