.
Governments depend upon the unlimited confidence of their subjects, and
confidence rests upon ignorance.

Government (has not Burke said so?) is the perpetual enemy of change,
and prompts us to seek the public welfare not in alteration and
improvement, but in a timid reverence for the decisions of our
ancestors, as if it were the nature of the human mind always to
degenerate and never to advance. Godwin thought with John Bright, "We
stand on the shoulders of our forefathers--and see further."

In proportion as weakness and ignorance shall diminish, the basis of
government will also decay. That will be its true euthanasia.

There is indeed nothing to be said for government save that for a time,
and within jealously drawn limits, it may be a fatal and indispensable
necessity. A just government cannot be founded on force: for force has
no affinity with justice. It cannot be based upon the will of God; we
have no revelation that recommends one form of government rather than
another. As little can it be based upon contract. Who were the parties
to the pretended social contract? For whom did they consent, for
themselves or for their descendants, and to how great a variety of
propositions? Have I assented or my ancestors for me, to the laws of
England in fifty volumes folio, and to all that shall hereafter be added
to them? In a few contemptuous pages Godwin buries the social contract.
Men when they digest the articles of a contract are not empowered to
create rights, but only to declare what was previously right. But the
doctrine of the natural rights of man fares no better at his hands.
There is no such thing as a positive right to do as we list. One way of
acting in every emergency is reasonable, and the other is not. One way
will benefit mankind, and the other will not. It is a pestilent doctrine
and a denial of all virtue, to say that we have a right to do what we
will with our own. Everything we possess has a destination prescribed to
it by the immutable voice of reason and justice.

Duties and rights are correlative. As it cannot be the duty of men or
societies to do anything to the detriment of human happiness, so it
appears with equal evidence that they cannot have the right to do so.
There cannot be a more absurd proposition than that which affirms the
right of doing wrong. The voice of the people is not the voice of God,
nor does universal consent or a majority vote convert wrong into right.
It is absurd to sa