... In a new colony, every facility is open to
the precautions of the legislator who desires _to purify the tone
and the manners of the people_. If he has genius and virtue, the
lands and the men which are _at his disposal_ will inspire his soul
with a plan of society which a writer can only vaguely trace, and
in a way which would be subject to the instability of all
hypotheses, which are varied and complicated by an infinity of
circumstances too difficult to foresee and to combine."
One would think it was a professor of agriculture who was saying to his
pupils--"The climate is the only rule for the agriculturist. _His_
resources dictate to him his duties. The first thing he has to consider
is his local position. If he is on a clayey soil, he must do so and so.
If he has to contend with sand, this is the way in which he must set
about it. Every facility is open to the agriculturist who wishes to
clear and improve his soil. If he only has the skill, the manure which
he has _at his disposal_ will suggest to him a plan of operation, which
a professor can only vaguely trace, and in a way that would be subject
to the uncertainty of all hypotheses, which vary and are complicated by
an infinity of circumstances too difficult to foresee and to combine."
But, oh! sublime writers, deign to remember sometimes that this clay,
this sand, this manure, of which you are disposing in so arbitrary a
manner, are men, your equals, intelligent and free beings like
yourselves, who have received from God, as you have, the faculty of
seeing, of foreseeing, of thinking, and of judging for themselves!
_Mably_.
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