method (setting aside the evils which arise from disturbing the natural order of human development) it is changed, modified, disfigured by the remaining influence of preceding systems, in the actual state of circumstances as well as in the minds of men. But if this obstacle be removed,—if the new condition of things which is resolved upon can succeed in working out its full influence, unimpeded by what was previously existing and by the circumstances of the present on which this has acted,—then must nothing further be allowed to stand in the way of the contemplated reform. The most general principles of the theory of all reform may therefore be reduced to these:—
1. We should never attempt to transfer purely theoretical principles into reality, before this latter, in its whole scope and tendencv, offers no further obstacles to the manifestation of those consequences to which, without any intermixture of other influences, the principles arrived at would lead.
2. In order to bring about the transition from the condition of the present to another newly resolved on, every reform should be allowed to proceed as much as possible from men's minds and thoughts.
In my exposition of abstract theoretical principles in this Essay, I have always proceeded strictly from considerations of human nature; I have not presupposed in this, moreover, any but the usual measure of power and capability, yet still I imagined man to exist in that state alone which is necessary and peculiar to his nature, and unfashioned by any determinate relation whatever. But we never find man thus: the circumstances amidst which he lives have in all cases already given him some or other determinate form. Whenever a State, therefore, contemplates extending or restricting its sphere of action, it must pay especial regard to this varying form which human nature assumes. Now, the misrelation between theory and reality, as regards this point of
