_Mr. Sarcastic._ I tried that in my youth, when I was troubled with the _passion for reforming the world_;[57] of which I have been long cured by the conviction of the inefficacy of moral theory with respect to producing a practical change in the mass of mankind. Custom is the pillar round which opinion twines, and interest is the tie that binds it. It is not by reason that practical change can be effected, but by making a puncture to the quick in the feelings of personal hope and personal fear. The Reformation in England is one of the supposed triumphs of reason. But if the passions of Henry the Eighth had not been interested in that measure, he would as soon have built mosques as pulled down abbeys; and you will observe that, in all cases, reformation never goes as far as reason requires, but just as far as suits the personal interest of those who conduct it. Place Temperance and Bacchus side by side, in an assembly of jolly fellows, and endow the first with the most powerful eloquence that mere reason can give, with the absolute moral force of mathematical demonstration, Bacchus need not take the trouble of refuting one of her arguments; he will only have to say, ‘Come, my boys, here’s _Damn Temperance_ in a bumper,’ and you may rely on the toast being drunk with an unanimous three times three. (_At the sound of the word_ bumper, _with which Captain Hawltaught had made him very familiar, Sir Oran Haut-ton looked round for his glass, but, finding it vanished, comforted himself with a dish of tea from the fair hand of Miss Danaretta, which, as his friend Mr. Forester had interdicted him from the use of sugar, he sweetened as well as he could with a copious infusion of cream_.)[58] _Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ As an Opposition orator in the Honourable House will bring forward a long detail of unanswerable arguments, without even expecting that they will have the slightest influence on the vote of the majority.