changing to their loss.

Fidelity to a present establishment is indeed the principal means to
defend it from a foreign enemy, but without other qualifications, will
not prevent corruptions from within; and states are more often ruined by
these than the other.

To conclude. Whether the proposals I have offered toward a reformation,
be such as are most prudent and convenient, may probably be a question;
but it is none at all, whether some reformation be absolutely necessary;
because the nature of things is such, that if abuses be not remedied,
they will certainly increase, nor ever stop, till they end in the
subversion of a commonwealth. As there must always of necessity be some
corruptions, so, in a well-instituted state, the executive power will be
always contending against them, by _reducing things_ (as Michiaevel
speaks) _to their first principles_; never letting abuses grow
inveterate, or multiply so far, that it will be hard to find remedies,
and perhaps impossible to apply them. As he that would keep his house in
repair, must attend every little breach or flaw, and supply it
immediately; else time alone will bring all to ruin; how much more the
common accidents of storms and rain? He must live in perpetual danger of
his house falling about his ears; and will find it cheaper to throw it
quite down, and build it again from the ground, perhaps upon a new
foundation, or at least in a new form, which may neither be so safe, nor
so convenient, as the old.

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