wise and experienced architects of the day to
set it upright again, and to prop and buttress it up for
duration;--whether it continues true to the principles upon which it has
hitherto stood;--whether this be _de facto_ the constitution of the
House of Commons, as it has been since the time that the House of
Commons has without dispute become a necessary and an efficient part of
the British Constitution. To ask whether a thing which has always been
the same stands to its usual principle seems to me to be perfectly
absurd: for how do you know the principles, but from the construction?
and if that remains the same, the principles remain the same. It is true
that to say your Constitution is what it has been is no sufficient
defence for those who say it is a bad constitution. It is an answer to
those who say that it is a degenerate constitution. To those who say it
is a bad one, I answer, Look to its effects. In all moral machinery, the
moral results are its test.

On what grounds do we go to restore our Constitution to what it has been
at some given period, or to reform and reconstruct it upon principles
more conformable to a sound theory of government? A prescriptive
government, such as ours, never was the work of any legislator, never
was made upon any foregone theory. It seems to me a preposterous way of
reasoning, and a perfect confusion of ideas, to take the theories which
learned and speculative men have made from that government, and then,
supposing it made on those theories which were made from it, to accuse
the government as not corresponding with them. I do not vilify theory
and speculation: no, because that would be to vilify reason itself,
_Neque decipitur ratio, neque decipit unquam_. No,--whenever I speak
against theory, I mean always a weak, erroneous, fallacious, unfounded,
or imperfect theory; and one of the ways of discovering that it is a
false theory is by comparing it with practice. This is the true
touchstone of all theories which regard man and the affairs of
men,--Does it suit his nature in general?--does it suit his nature as
modified by his habits?

The more frequently this affair is discussed, the stronger the case
appears to the sense and the feelings of mankind. I have no more doubt
than I entertain of my existence, that this very thing, which is stated
as an horrible thing, is the means of the preservation of our
Constitution whilst it lasts,--of curing it of many of the disorders
which, att