[xviii] NOTE I. 



so we look upon the fathers, and what they said and what they 

 did, with full reverence, though not with full resignation.&quot; 



Blackstone, in his Commentaries says, &quot; And it hath been 

 an ancient observation in the laws of England, that whenever 

 a standing rule of law, of which the reason perhaps could not 

 be remembered or discerned, hath been wantonly broken in 

 upon by statutes or new resolutions, the wisdom of the rule hath 

 in the end appeared from the inconveniencies that have fol 

 lowed the innovation. The doctrine of the law then is this : 

 that precedents and rules must be followed, unless flatly ab 

 surd or unjust: for though their reason be not obvious at 

 first view, yet we owe such a deference to former times, as 

 not to suppose that they acted wholly without consideration.&quot; 



The following extract is, I believe, from a work entitled 

 &quot; Essays on the Formation of Opinion ;&quot; &quot; Let him that is 

 sceptical as to the vast importance of truth, cast his eye 

 down the long catalogue of crimes and cruelties which 

 stain the annals of the past, and examine the meliora 

 tion which has taken place in the practices of the world, 

 and he will not again inquire into the nature of those advan 

 tages which follow the destruction of eiror. Ail the liberality 

 of thinking which now prevails, the spirit of resistance to 

 tyranny, the contempt of priestcraft, the comparative rarity and 

 mildness of religious persecution, the mitigation of national 

 prejudices, the disappearance of &quot;a number of mischievous su 

 perstitions, the abolition of superfluous, absurd, and sangui 

 nary laws, are so many exemplifications of the benefits result 

 ing from the progress of moral and political truth. They are 

 triumphs, all of them, over established error, and imply, respec 

 tively, either the removal of a source of misery or a positive 

 addition to the sources of happiness. It is impossible for a 

 moment to imagine, that if moral and political science had 

 been thoroughly understood, the barbarities here noticed would 

 have existed. A pernicious custom or an absurd law can never 

 long prevail amidst a complete and universal appreciation of 

 its character. 1 



