130 ADAM SMITH. 



easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy 

 and successful. If they are opposite or different, the 

 game will go on miserably, and the society must be at 

 all 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 reforma- 

 tion, which they predict will not only remove the incon- 

 veniences, and relieve the distresses immediately com- 

 plained of, but will prevent in all time coming any 

 return of the like inconveniences and distresses. They 

 often propose on this account 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 enjoyed perhaps peace, security, and even glory, 



