warfare remains _in statu
quo_:--

"Those who either attack or defend a minister in such a government
as ours, where the utmost liberty is allowed, always carry matters
to an extreme, and exaggerate his merit or demerit with regard to
the public. His enemies are sure to charge him with the greatest
enormities, both in domestic and foreign management; and there is
no meanness or crime, of which, in their judgment, he is not
capable. Unnecessary wars, scandalous treaties, profusion of public
treasure, oppressive taxes, every kind of maladministration is
ascribed to him. To aggravate the charge, his pernicious conduct,
it is said, will extend its baneful influence even to posterity, by
undermining the best constitution in the world, and disordering
that wise system of laws, institutions, and customs, by which our
ancestors, during so many centuries, have been so happily governed.
He is not only a wicked minister in himself, but has removed every
security provided against wicked ministers for the future.

"On the other hand, the partisans of the minister make his
panegyric rise as high as the accusation against him, and celebrate
his wise, steady, and moderate conduct in every part of his
administration. The honour and interest of the nation supported
abroad, public credit maintained at home, persecution restrained,
faction subdued: the merit of all these blessings is ascribed
solely to the minister. At the same time, he crowns all his other
merits by a religious care of the best government in the world,
which he has preserved in all its parts, and has transmitted
entire, to be the happiness and security of the latest
posterity."--(III. 26.)

Hume sagely remarks that the panegyric and the accusation cannot both be
true; and, that what truth there may be in either, rather tends to show
that our much-vaunted constitution does not fulfil its chief object,
which is to provide a remedy against maladministration. And if it does
not--

"we are rather beholden to any minister who undermines it and
affords us the opportunity of erecting a better in its
place."--III. 28.

The fifth Essay discusses the _Origin of Government_:--

"Man, born in a family, is compelled to maintain society from
necessity, from natural inclination, and from habit. The same
creature, in his f