Page:Essay on the First Principles of Government 2nd Ed.djvu/301

 maxim of the government, that every thing of importance should for ever remain unalterably fixed.

The whole of this system of uniformity appears to me to be founded on very narrow and short-sighted views of policy. A man of extensive views will overlook temporary evils, with a prospect of the greater good which may often result from, or be inseparably connected with them. He will bear with a few tares, lest, in attempting to root them out, he endanger rooting up the wheat with them. Unbounded free enquiry upon all kinds of subjects may certainly be attended with some inconvenience, but it cannot be restrained without infinitely greater inconvenience. The deistical performances Dr. Brown is so much offended at may have unsettled the minds of some people, but the minds of many have been more firmly settled, and upon better foundations than ever. The scheme of christianity has been far better understood, since those deistical writings have occasioned the subject to be