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… is from page 589 of the 2006 Liberty Fund edition of Adam Smith’s student and friend John Millar [2]’s posthumously published 1803 treatise, An Historical View of the English Government [3] (original emphasis, footnote deleted):
The authority of every government is founded in opinion; and no system, be it ever so perfect in itself, can be expected to acquire stability, or to produce good order and submission, unless it coincides with the general voice of the community. He who frames a political constitution upon a model of ideal perfection, and attempts to introduce it into any country, without consulting the inclinations of the inhabitants, is a most pernicious projector, who, instead of being applauded as a Lycurgus, ought to be chained and confined as a madman.
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