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In the beginning of this chapter I have spoken of the splendid results attained by those who drew up the Constitution; and then, as though in opposition to the praise thus given to their work, I have insisted throughout the chapter both on the insufficiency of the Constitution and on the breaches to which it has been subjected.
And it finds its corroboration and justification and freedom not by way of dogmatics but of criticism. It is impossible to distinguish artificially two sets of causes, and to give to the world what is alleged to be of the world, and to God what is alleged to be of God. But it is permissible to point to the insufficiency of our causal study in general, and to the limits of our knowledge.
At an earlier epoch, to be sure, when Germans had in the course of centuries grown accustomed to the degradation of being robbed of all political significance, a large section of our people did not feel this insufficiency. The nobler and better section of our nation, at any rate, holds different sentiments to-day.
In spring we listen to Norwegian songs the blackbird and the thrush that please us so much, if not themselves of Scandinavian birth, have had a Scandinavian origin. Any one walking about woods like these in January can understand how, where there are large flocks of birds, they must find the pressure of numbers through the insufficiency of food.
Certainly, philosophy has taught us the insufficiency of all a priori proofs of the truth of the conception of God; critical science has shown us its empirical origin, and taught us that our ideas of the soul, God, and the future life have proceeded from the most erroneous and crudest attempts to explain certain physiological and psychological phenomena: but even if the conception of the Deity were the greatest error committed by mankind, it is yet incontestable that this conception has produced and still produces the greatest blessings for mankind.
Still he thought of the tables of the money-changers, and the insufficiency of him who had given as much as half to the poor. But even while so thinking, he was tempted to give less than half himself, to set up on his own account a money-changing table in his own temple. He would fain have worshipped at the two shrines together had he been able.
Hastings sold a set of innocent officers, sold his fellow-servants of the Company, entitled by every duty to his protection, sold English subjects, recommended by every tie of national sympathy, sold the honor of the British government itself, without charge, without complaint, without allegation of crime in conduct, or of insufficiency in talents: he sold them to the most known and abandoned character which the rank servitude of that clime produces.
Impeded by their own numbers, and paralyzed by the insufficiency of the resources of the port, they remained there a huge, inert mass, whose impotence was only partially understood by the British; a fact which conduced to prolong Keith's presence in the Channel. The year under consideration was therefore devoid of stirring events at sea.
"But in exposing such a finished deception he has acted very much against his own interest, both by quickening the penetration of those whom he meant to impose upon, and by staggering their belief in miracles in general. Your highness' self is the best proof of the insufficiency of his plan, if indeed he ever had one."
It is, therefore, from men educated in the school of daily practice and experience, and who to a knowledge of general principles have added, from the habits of their profession, a certain feeling of the justness or insufficiency of any mechanical contrivance, that the soundest opinions on a matter of this kind can be obtained."