When I see the spirit of liberty in action, I see a strong principle at
work; and this, for a while, is all I can possibly know of it. The wild
gas, the fixed air, is plainly broke loose: but we ought to suspend our
judgment until the first effervescence is a little subsided, till the
liquor is cleared, and until we see something deeper than the agitation
of a troubled and frothy surface. I must be tolerably sure, before I
venture publicly to congratulate men upon a blessing, that they have
really received one. Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver;
and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings. I
should therefore suspend my congratulations on the new liberty of
France, until I was informed how it had been combined with government,
with public force, with the discipline and obedience of armies, with the
collection of an effective and well-distributed revenue, with morality
and religion, with solidity and property, with peace and order, with
civil and social manners. All these (in their way) are good things, too;
and without them, liberty is not a benefit whilst it lasts, and is not
likely to continue long. The effect of liberty to individuals is, that
they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them
to do, before we risk congratulations, which may be soon turned into
complaints. Prudence would dictate this in the case of separate,
insulated, private men.
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