Page:Thoughts on civil liberty, on licentiousness and faction.djvu/161

 can only arise from a general Subordination of These, to the public Welfare. We have seen these Truths confirmed, by an Appeal to the State of three famed Republics, which by Turns arose and fell, on the very Principles here delivered. We have seen the Defects, as well as Excellencies, of our own public Constitution, both civil and religious: That its Form is excellent and unrivaled; but that the practical Application of this unrivaled Excellence is attended with Defects incurable: That it hath all along been inevitably counterworked by Manners and Principles discordant with its Genius, and discordant with each other: That for Want of a prescribed Code of Education, to which all the Members of the Community should legally submit, the Manners and Principles on which alone the State can rest, are ineffectually instilled, are vague, fluctuating, and self-contradictory.

Nothing, then, is more evident, than that some Reform in this great Point, is