CHAPTER X
LORD SHELBURNE ON MEN AND THINGS
During the period of which the political history has been narrated, Lord Shelburne continued to employ his leisure in the management of his estates in England and Ireland. Some of his reflections on the subjects thus brought to his notice and on kindred topics will be found in the following paper:[1]—
England
"Man is made to be dependent in some respects, independent in others. Religion, morality, and necessity, point out his duties to others. Pride, knowledge of life, and reflection, suggest those which he owes to himself, and confirm those he owes to society. It is the action and reaction of these duties one upon the other, which ensure a man's happiness and credit through life; but all combine in one fundamental principle, never to be departed from, to put yourself in the power of no man.
"Constitutional liberty consists in the right of exercising freely every faculty of mind or body, which can be exercised without preventing another man from doing the like. In the best Governments more or less of this liberty has been unnecessarily sacrificed through ignorance, indolence, or accident, and a man must wait a favourable opportunity to recover what his ancestors lose. But in private life, it is imbecility or madness ever to lose liberty,
- ↑ This chapter has been edited from a memorandum on his private affairs left by Lord Lansdowne, an incomplete letter on Ireland (apparently intended for publication), and several fragmentary papers among the Lansdowne House MSS., and one or two passages in the autobiographical fragments which do not belong to the history of events.
336
