Page:Essay on the First Principles of Government 2nd Ed.djvu/272

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THE PROGRESS OF

cannot be touched without endangering the other. I am not insensible of the truth there is in the principle on which this apprehension is grounded; but I think the connection (artfully as those things have been interwoven) is not so strict, but that they may be separated, at least, in a course of time. But allowing that some change might take place in our civil constitution, in consequence of the abolition, or reformation of the ecclesiastical part, it is more than an equal chance, that the alteration will be for the better; and no real friend to his country can wish to perpetuate its present constitution in church or state, so far as to interrupt its progress to greater perfection than it has yet attained to.

I can heartily join with the greatest admirers of the English constitution, in their encomiums upon it, when it is compared with that of any other country in the world. I really think it to be the best actual scheme of civil policy; but if any person should say, that it is perfect, and that no alteration can be made