204 ADAM SMITH. 



times in the highest degree of disorder." " For a man 

 to insist upon establishing, and upon establishing all 

 at once, and in spite of all opposition, anything which 

 his own idea of policy and law may seem to require, 

 must often be the highest degree of arrogance. It is 

 to erect his own judgment into the supreme standard 

 of right and wrong. It is to fancy himself the only 

 wise and worthy man in the commonwealth, that his 

 fellow creatures should accommodate themselves to 

 him, and not he to them." (Vol. II. p. 110.) 



There are scattered through this and Dr. Smith's 

 other work abundant indications of the scorn in which 

 he held faction and the spirit it engenders ; but I am 

 far from being averse to cite passages which may be 

 supposed to reflect on my own policy and conduct, 

 while a minister or a party chief, or to confine my 

 quotations to those opinions with which I might be 

 supposed more to agree. The following passage must 

 be fairly admitted to contain much truth, though not 

 stated in terms sufficiently measured : " The leaders 

 of the discontented party seldom fail to hold out some 

 plausible plan of reformation, which they predict will 

 not only remove the inconveniences, and relieve the 

 distresses immediately complained of, but will prevent 

 in all time coming any return of the like inconveni- 

 ences and distresses. They often propose on this ac- 

 count to remodel the constitution, and to alter in some 

 of its most essential parts that system of government 

 under which the subjects of a great empire have en- 

 joyed perhaps peace, security, and even glory, during 

 the course of several centuries together. The great 

 body of the party are commonly intoxicated with the 

 imaginary beauty of this ideal system of which they 

 have no experience, but which has been presented to 

 them in all the most dazzling colours in which the elo- 

 quence of their leaders could display it. The leaders 

 themselves, though they may originally have meant 

 nothing but their own aggrandisement, become many 



