Without any establishments to preserve their manners, besides penal
laws, and the restraints of police, they derive, from instinctive feelings,
a love of integrity and candour, and from the very contagion of society
itself, an esteem for what is honourable and praiseworthy. They derive,
from their union and joint opposition to foreign enemies, a zeal for their
own community, and courage to maintain its rights. If the frequent neglect
of virtue, as a political object, tend to discredit the understandings of
men, its lustre, and its frequency, as a spontaneous offspring of the
heart, will restore the honours of our nature.
In every casual and mixed state of the national manners, the safety of
every individual, and his political consequence, depends much on himself,
but more on the party to which he is joined. For this reason, all who feel
a common interest, are apt to unite in parties; and, as far as that
interest requires, mutually support each other.
Where the citizens of any free community are of different orders, each
order has a peculiar set of claims and pretensions: relatively to the other
members of the state, it is a party; relatively to the differences of
interest among its own members, it may admit of numberless subdivisions.
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