Our whole issue is upon
principles, and what I shall say to you will be in perpetual reference
to them; because it is better to have no principles at all than to have
false principles of government and of morality. Leave a man to his
passions, and you leave a wild beast to a savage and capricious nature.
A wild beast, indeed, when its stomach is full, will caress you, and may
lick your hands; in like manner, when a tyrant is pleased or his passion
satiated, you may have a happy and serene day under an arbitrary
government. But when the principle founded on solid reason, which ought
to restrain passion, is perverted from its proper end, the false
principle will be substituted for it, and then man becomes ten times
worse than a wild beast. The evil principle, grown solid and perennial,
goads him on and takes entire possession of his mind; and then perhaps
the best refuge that you can have from that diabolical principle is in
the natural wild passions and unbridled appetites of mankind. This is a
dreadful state of things; and therefore we have thought it necessary to
say a great deal upon his principles.
* * * * *
My Lords, we come next to apply these principles to facts which cannot
otherwise be judged, as we have contended and do now contend.
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