t"]^ ci7-Siuart''s ele^nents. 145 



garded as tlie mark of a good citizen, never to despair of 

 the fortunes of the republic j — so the good citizen of the 

 world, whatever may be the political aspect of his own 

 times, wiU never despair of the fortunes of the human 

 race j but will act upon the conviction, that prejudice, 

 slavery, and corruption, must gradually give way to truth, 

 liberty, and virtue j and that, in the moral world, as well 

 as in the material, the farther our observations extend, and 

 the longer they ai-e continued, the more we Ihall perceive 

 of order and of benevolent design in the universe. 



" Nor is this change in the condition of man, in conse- 

 q^uence of the progrefs of reason, by any means contrary 

 to the general apalogy of his natural history. In the in- 

 fancy of the individual, his existence is preserved by in- 

 stincts, which disappear afterwards, when they are no 

 longer necefeary. In the savage state of our species,- there 

 are instincts which seem to form a part of the human con- 

 stitution, and of which no traces remain in those periods 

 oi society in which their use is superseded by a more en- 

 larged experience. Wliy then fliould we deny the pro- 

 bability of something similar to this in the history of man, 

 considered in his political capacity ? I have already had 

 occasion to observe, that the governments which the 

 world has hitherto seen, have seldom or nev^r taken their 

 rjsc from deep laid schemes of human policy. In every 

 state of society which has yet existed, the multitude has, 

 in general, acted from the immediate impulse of pafsion, or 

 from the prefsureof their wants and necefsities j and there- 

 fore what we commonly call the political order, is, at 

 least .in a great measure, the result of the pafsions and 

 wants of man, combined with the circumstances of his 

 -ituation ; or, in other words, it is chiefly the result of the 

 .isdom of nature. So beautifully, indeed, do these pafsions 

 aad circumstaaccs act in subserviency to her designs j and so 

 VOi. i. T f 



