But whilst I revere men in the functions which belong to
them, and would do as much as one man can do to prevent their exclusion
from any, I cannot, to flatter them, give the lie to nature. They are
good and useful in the composition; they must be mischievous if they
preponderate so as virtually to become the whole. Their very excellence
in their peculiar functions may be far from a qualification for others.
It cannot escape observation, that when men are too much confined to
professional and faculty habits, and as it were inveterate in the
recurrent employment of that narrow circle, they are rather disabled
than qualified for whatever depends on the knowledge of mankind, on
experience in mixed affairs, on a comprehensive, connected view of the
various, complicated, external, and internal interests, which go to the
formation of that multifarious thing called a state. After all, if the
House of Commons were to have a wholly professional and faculty
composition, what is the power of the House of Commons, circumscribed
and shut in by the immoveable barriers of law, usages, positive rules of
doctrine and practice, counterpoised by the House of Lords, and every
moment of its existence at the discretion of the crown to continue,
prorogue, or dissolve us? The power of the House of Commons, direct or
indirect, is indeed great; and long may it be able to preserve its
greatness, and the spirit belonging to true greatness, at the full; and
it will do so, as long as it can keep the breakers of law in India from
becoming the makers of law for England.
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