High School Reading Grades 11 12 Quiz
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From a letter to a young statesman, 1798:
You write to inquire whether, in the framing of laws, the legislator ought to be governed by the settled customs of his people or by the abstract principles which reason discovers. I confess I have grown suspicious of the disjunction itself. Custom, when it has endured, is seldom without reason at its root, though the reason may have been forgotten by those who observe the custom; and reason, when it addresses itself to the government of men, must reckon with the materials it finds, which are precisely the customs, habits, and affections of an actual people, not the abstract citizens of a philosopher's diagram.
The legislator who esteems custom alone becomes the curator of a museum; the legislator who esteems reason alone becomes the architect of a ruin. The art of governance lies in perceiving which customs conceal a living reason that ought to be preserved, and which conceal only the fossilized reasons of a vanished age. This discernment cannot be reduced to rule; it is the very substance of statesmanship, and no philosopher's system can supply its want.
Which of the following would most likely represent the author's judgment on a proposed reform?
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