But there were
then persons in the world who nourished complaint, and would have been
thoroughly disappointed, if the people were ever satisfied. I was not of
that humor. I wished that they _should_ be satisfied. It was my aim to
give to the people the substance of what I knew they desired, and what I
thought was right, whether they desired it or not, before it had been
modified for them into senseless petitions. I knew that there is a
manifest, marked distinction, which ill men with ill designs, or weak
men incapable of any design, will constantly be confounding,--that is, a
marked distinction between change and reformation. The former alters the
substance of the objects themselves, and gets rid of all their essential
good as well as of all the accidental evil annexed to them. Change is
novelty; and whether it is to operate any one of the effects of
reformation at all, or whether it may not contradict the very principle
upon which reformation is desired, cannot be certainly known beforehand.
Reform is not a change in the substance or in the primary modification
of the object, but a direct application of a remedy to the grievance
complained of. So far as that is removed, all is sure. It stops there;
and if it fails, the substance which underwent the operation, at the
very worst, is but where it was.
All this, in effect, I think, but am not sure, I have said elsewhere. It
cannot at this time be too often repeated, line upon line, precept upon
precept, until it comes into the currency of a proverb,--_To innovate is
not to reform_.
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