Secondly, they will not be less deficient in efficacy than they are in wisdom. The object at which we are supposing them to aim is to improve the opinions, and through them the manners, of mankind; for manners are nothing but opinions carried out into action: such as is the fountain, such will be the streams that are supplied from it. But what is it upon which opinion must be founded? Surely upon evidence, upon the perceptions of the understanding. Has society then any particular advantage, in its corporate capacity, for illuminating the understanding? Can it convey, into its addresses and expostulations a compound or sublimate of the wisdom of all its members, superior in quality to the individual wisdom of any?
If so, why have not societies of men written treatises of morality, of the philosophy of nature, or the philosophy of mind? Why have all the great steps of human improvement been the work of individuals?
If then society, considered as an agent, have no particular advantage for enlightening the understanding, the real difference between the dicta of society and the dicta of individuals must be looked for in the article of authority. But authority is, by the very nature of the case, inadequate to the task it assumes to perform. Man is the creature of habit and judgment;Chapter nd the empire of the former of these, though not perhaps more absolute, is one at least more conspicuous. The most efficacious instrument I can possess for changing a man's habits is to change his judgments. Even this instrument will seldom produce a sudden, though, when brought into full operation, it is perhaps sure of producing a gradual revolution. But this mere authority can never of. Where it does most in changing the characters of men, it only changes them into base and despicable slaves. Contending against the habits of entire society, it can do nothing. It excites only contempt of its frivolous endeavours. If laws were a sufficient means for the reformation of error and vice, it is not to be believed but that the world, long ere this, would have become the seat of every virtue. Nothing can be more easy than to command men to be just and good to love their neighbours, to practise universal sincerity, to be content with a little, and to resist the enticements of avarice and ambition. But, when we have done, will the actions of men be altered by our precepts? These commands have been decreed that every man should be hanged that violated them, it is vehemently to be suspected that this would not have secured their influence.