There was a time when I looked with a reverential awe on these mysteries of policy; but age, experience, and philosophy, have rent the veil; and I view this _sanctum sanctorum_, at least, without any enthusiastic admiration.

I acknowledge, indeed, the necessity of such a proceeding in such institutions; but I must have a very mean opinion of institutions where such proceedings are necessary.
It is a misfortune that in no part of the globe natural liberty and natural religion are to be found pure, and free from the mixture of political adulterations.

Yet we have implanted in us by Providence, ideas, axioms, rules, of what is pious, just, fair, honest, which no political craft, nor learned sophistry can entirely expel from our breasts.

By these we judge, and we cannot otherwise judge, of the several artificial modes of religion and society, and determine of them as they approach to or recede from this standard.
The simplest form of government is _despotism_, where all the inferior orbs of power are moved merely by the will of the Supreme, and all that are subjected to them directed in the same manner, merely by the occasional will of the magistrate.

This form, as it is the most simple, so it is infinitely the most general.