§. 223. To this, perhaps, it will be said that the people being ignorant and
always discontented, to lay the foundation of government in the unsteady
opinion and uncertain humour of the people, is to expose it to certain ruin;
and no government will be able long to subsist if the people may set up a new
legislative whenever they take offence at the old one. To this I answer, quite
the contrary. People are not so easily got out of their old forms as some are
apt to suggest. They are hardly to be prevailed with to amend the acknowledged
faults in the frame they have been accustomed to. And if there be any original
defects, or adventitious ones introduced by time or corruption, it is not an
easy thing to get them changed, even when all the world sees there is an
opportunity for it. This slowness and aversion in the people to quit their old
constitutions has in the many revolutions [that] have been seen in this
kingdom, in this and former ages, still kept us to, or after some interval of
fruitless attempts, still brought us back again to, our old legislative of
king, lords and commons; and whatever provocations have made the crown be taken
from some of our princes' heads, they never carried the people so far as to
place it in another line.
