“Any government is free to the people under it (whatever be the frame,) where the laws rule and the people are a party to those laws; and more than this is tyranny, oligarchy, and confusion.”
“There is hardly one frame of government in the world so ill designed by its first founders, that, in good hands, would not do well enough; and story tells us, the best, in ill ones, can do nothing that is great or good.” “I know,” continues Penn, “some say, Let us have good laws, and no matter for the men that execute them: but let them consider, that though good laws do well, good men do better: for good laws may want good men, and be abolished or evaded by ill men; but good men will never want good laws, nor suffer ill ones. It is here, good laws have some awe upon ill ministers; but that is where they have not power to escape or abolish them, and the people are generally wise and good: but a loose and depraved people (which is to be the question) love laws and an administration like themselves. That, therefore, which makes a good constitution, must keep it, viz. men of wisdom and virtue; qualities that, because they descend not with worldly inheritances, must be carefully propagated by a virtuous education of youth.”
[370]. See Dr. Rush’s Eulog. on Ritt.
[371]. About the middle of January, 1813, the Memorialist passed a very pleasant evening, in company with an agreeable party of friends, at the house of Dr. Rush. Among various subjects, which were then discussed with much ingenuity and good humour, Redhefer’s pretended discovery of what is called the Perpetual Motion, a thing which had then, very recently, attracted a good deal of the public attention, was brought upon the tapes: when Dr. Rush, addressing himself to the Writer, who had just expressed his opinion decidedly against the projector’s theory, as being utterly incompatible with established principles of physics and well-known laws of the material world, said quite emphatically; “Sir, I entirely agree with you: and let me observe, there are four things, concerning which I have always been completely sceptical, as I am sure your good uncle[[371a]] also was; that is to say, the perfectibility of human reason; the possibility of transmuting base metals into silver and gold; a panacea, in the healing art; and a power, in any mortal, to give perpetuity of motion to matter.” These were, substantially, the sentiments expressed by Dr. Rush, on the occasion; and the Writer believes he is pretty accurate in his recollection of the very words which the Doctor used.
[371a]. Dr. Rittenhouse.
[372]. See Notes on Virginia.
[373]. All the boundary-lines, mentioned above, were determined by astronomical observations. The manner in which the work was performed, with an account of the instruments used on those occasions, will be found in the fourth volume of the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. Some of Dr. Rittenhouse’s associates, in those arduous undertakings, were men of high reputation in the same departments of science; but his talents were principally relied on.
[374]. See Notes on Virginia.
[375]. Ibid.
[376]. It will, perhaps, have occurred to the reader, that besides such of the WORKS of Dr. Rittenhouse, as are referred to in the text, in some of which, the blended effects of genius, philosophical science and mechanical skill, were equally conspicuous, he put the Mint into operation. In the language of his worthy successor in the direction of that institution, “his lofty and correct mind, capable alike of ascending to the sublimest heights of science, and of condescending to regulate the minute movements of mechanical machinery, organized the Mint, and created the workmen and the apparatus.” His agency in directing the construction, and arranging the operative departments, of this important establishment, though less indicative of extraordinary mechanical genius than many of his other works, was nevertheless an arduous undertaking: it was conducted, as Mr. De Saussure very justly observed, “amidst complicated difficulties, from which the most persevering minds might have shrunk without dishonour.”