faults of his office instantly become
his own. Instead of a public officer in an abusive department, whose
province is an object to be regulated, he becomes a criminal who is to
be punished. I do most seriously put it to administration to consider
the wisdom of a timely reform. Early reformations are amicable
arrangements with a friend in power; late reformations are terms imposed
upon a conquered enemy: early reformations are made in cool blood; late
reformations are made under a state of inflammation. In that state of
things the people behold in government nothing that is respectable. They
see the abuse, and they will see nothing else. They fall into the temper
of a furious populace provoked at the disorder of a house of ill-fame;
they never attempt to correct or regulate; they go to work by the
shortest way: they abate the nuisance, they pull down the house.

This is my opinion with regard to the true interest of government. But
as it is the interest of government that reformation should be early, it
is the interest of the people that it should be temperate. It is their
interest, because a temperate reform is permanent, and because it has a
principle of growth. Whenever we improve, it is right to leave room for
a further improvement. It is right to consider, to look about us, to
examine the effect of what we have done. Then we can proceed with
confidence, because we can proceed with intelligence. Whereas in hot
reformations, in what men more zealous than considerate call _making
clear work_, the whole is generally so crude, so harsh, so indigested,
mixed with so much imprudence and so much injustice, so contrary to the
whole course of human nature and human institutions, that the very
people who are most eager for it are among the first to grow disgusted
at what they have done. Then some part of the abdicated grievance is
recalled from its exile in order to become a corrective of the
correction. Then the abuse assumes all the credit and popularity of a
reform. The very idea of purity and disinterestedness in politics falls
into disrepute, and is considered as a vision of hot and inexperienced
men; and thus disorders become incurable, not by the virulence of their
own quality, but by the unapt and violent nature of the remedies. A
great part, therefore, of my idea of reform is meant to operate
gradually: some benefits will come at a nearer, some at a more remote
period. We must no more make haste to be rich by parsimon