Large bodies,if once overthrown,are with great difficulty set up again,or even kept erect when once seriously shaken,and the fall of such is always disastrous.Then if there are any imperfections in the constitutions of states (and that many such exist the diversity of constitutions is alone sufficient to assure us),custom has without doubt materially smoothed their inconveniences,and has even managed to steer altogether clear of,or insensibly corrected a number which sagacity could not have provided against with equal effect;and,in fine,the defects are almost always more tolerable than the change necessary for their removal;in the same manner that highways which wind among mountains,by being much frequented,become gradually so smooth and commodious,that it is much better to follow them than to seek a straighter path by climbing over the tops of rocks and descending to the bottoms of precipices.
Hence it is that I cannot in any degree approve of those restless and busy meddlers who,called neither by birth nor fortune to take part in the management of public affairs,are yet always projecting reforms;and if Ithought that this tract contained aught which might justify the suspicion that I was a victim of such folly,I would by no means permit its publication.I have never contemplated anything higher than the reformation of my own opinions,and basing them on a foundation wholly my own.And although my own satisfaction with my work has led me to present here a draft of it,I do not by any means therefore recommend to every one else to make a similar attempt.Those whom God has endowed with a larger measure of genius will entertain,perhaps,designs still more exalted;but for the many I am much afraid lest even the present undertaking be more than they can safely venture to imitate.The single design to strip one's self of all past beliefs is one that ought not to be taken by every one.
The majority of men is composed of two classes,for neither of which would this be at all a befitting resolution:in the first place,of those who with more than a due confidence in their own powers,are precipitate in their judgments and want the patience requisite for orderly and circumspect thinking;whence it happens,that if men of this class once take the liberty to doubt of their accustomed opinions,and quit the beaten highway,they will never be able to thread the byway that would lead them by a shorter course,and will lose themselves and continue to wander for life;in the second place,of those who,possessed of sufficient sense or modesty to determine that there are others who excel them in the power of discriminating between truth and error,and by whom they may be instructed,ought rather to content themselves with the opinions of such than trust for more correct to their own reason.
For my own part,I should doubtless have belonged to the latter class,had I received instruction from but one master,or had I never known the diversities of opinion that from time immemorial have prevailed among men of the greatest learning.But I had become aware,even so early as during my college life,that no opinion,however absurd and incredible,can be imagined,which has not been maintained by some on of the philosophers;and afterwards in the course of my travels I remarked that all those whose opinions are decidedly repugnant to ours are not in that account barbarians and savages,but on the contrary that many of these nations make an equally good,if not better,use of their reason than we do.Itook into account also the very different character which a person brought up from infancy in France or Germany exhibits,from that which,with the same mind originally,this individual would have possessed had he lived always among the Chinese or with savages,and the circumstance that in dress itself the fashion which pleased us ten years ago,and which may again,perhaps,be received into favor before ten years have gone,appears to us at this moment extravagant and ridiculous.I was thus led to infer that the ground of our opinions is far more custom and example than any certain knowledge.And,finally,although such be the ground of our opinions,I remarked that a plurality of suffrages is no guarantee of truth where it is at all of difficult discovery,as in such cases it is much more likely that it will be found by one than by many.I could,however,select from the crowd no one whose opinions seemed worthy of preference,and thus I found myself constrained,as it were,to use my own reason in the conduct of my life.
But like one walking alone and in the dark,I resolved to proceed so slowly and with such circumspection,that if I did not advance far,Iwould at least guard against falling.I did not even choose to dismiss summarily any of the opinions that had crept into my belief without having been introduced by reason,but first of all took sufficient time carefully to satisfy myself of the general nature of the task I was setting myself,and ascertain the true method by which to arrive at the knowledge of whatever lay within the compass of my powers.
