第45章

As we have a duty obliging us to a certain conduct respecting our faculties and our possessions, so our neighbour has a duty respecting his admonitions and advice. He is guilty of an omission in this point, if he fail to employ every means in his power for the amendment of our errors, and to have recourse for that purpose, as he may see occasion, to the most unreserved animadversion upon our propensities and conduct. It is absurd to suppose that certain points are especially within my province, and therefore he may not afford me, invited or uninvited. his assistance in arriving at a right decision.

He is bound to form the best judgement he is able respecting every circumstance that falls under his observation; what he thinks, he is bound to declare to others; and, if to others, certainly not less to the party immediately concerned. The worst consequences, through every rank and department of life, have arisen from men's supposing their personal affairs in any case to be so sacred, that every one, except themselves, was bound to be blind and dumb in relation to them.

The ground of this error has been a propensity, to which we are frequently subject, of concluding from the excess to the thing itself. Undoubtedly our neighbour is to be directed in his animadversions, not by a spirit of levity and impertinence, but by a calculation of the eventual utility.

Undoubtedly there is one person who must, in almost all instances, be the real actor, and other persons may not, but with caution and sober reflection occupy his time with their suggestions as to the conduct he ought to pursue.

There is scarcely any tyranny more gross than that of the man who should perpetually intrude upon us his crude and half-witted advices, or who, not observing when, in point of strength and clearness, he had done Justice to his own conception, should imagine it to be his duty to repeat and press it upon us without end. Advice perhaps requires above all things that it should be ad ministered with simplicity, disinterestedness, kindness and moderation. -- To return.

It has been affirmed by the zealous advocates of liberty, "that princes and magistrates have no rights;" and no position can be more incontrovertible.

There is no situation of their lives that has not its correspondent duties.

There is no power entrusted to them, that they are not bound to exercise exclusively for the public good. It is strange that persons adopting this principle, did not go a step further, and perceive that the same restrictions were applicable to subjects and citizens.

It is scarcely necessary to add, that, if individuals have no rights, neither has society, which possesses nothing but what individuals have brought into a common stock. The absurdity of the common opinion, as applied to this subject, is still more glaring, if possible, than in the view in which we have already considered it. According to the usual sentiment, every club assembling for any civil purpose, every congregation of religionists assembling for the worship of God, has a right to establish any provisions or ceremonies, no matter how ridiculous or detestable, provided they do not interfere with the freedom of others. Reason lies prostrate at their feet; they have a right to trample upon and insult her as they please.

It is in the same spirit we have been told, that every nation has a right to choose its form of government. An acute and original author was probably misled by the vulgar phraseology on this subject, when he asserted, that, "at a time when neither the people of France nor the national assembly were troubling themselves about the affairs of England or the English parliament, Mr. Burke's conduct was unpardonable in commencing an unprovoked attack upon them."