Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in
that practical science; because the real effects of moral causes are not
always immediate, but that which in the first instance is prejudicial
may be excellent in its remoter operation, and its excellence may arise
even from the ill effects it produces in the beginning. The reverse also
happens; and very plausible schemes, with very pleasing commencements,
have often shameful and lamentable conclusions. In states there are
often some obscure and almost latent causes, things which appear at
first view of little moment, on which a very great part of its
prosperity or adversity may most essentially depend. The science of
government being, therefore, so practical in itself, and intended for
such practical purposes, a matter which requires experience, and even
more experience than any person can gain in his whole life, however
sagacious and observing he may be, it is with infinite caution that any
man ought to venture upon pulling down an edifice which has answered in
any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes of society, or on
building it up again without having models and patterns of approved
utility before his eyes.
These metaphysic rights entering into common life, like rays of light
which pierce into a dense medium, are, by the laws of Nature, refracted
from their straight line.
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