is bound to make them known at the next session. He keeps the seal of state, signs and seals concordats and conventions. He watches over the execution of the decrees of the Landsgemeinde, the Councils, and the Commission of State, in so far as the execution is not intrusted to a special authority. The re-election of the Landammann is universal; and the office, though always filled by an annual selection, becomes almost hereditary in a single family. Customs still exercise a considerable empire in these Cantons, and the Landsgemeinde makes but few laws; there is none of the confusion and uncertainty that come from a multiplicity of laws; a source to which was imputed a great part of the miseries suffered by the Romans at the time when “the laws grew to be innumerable in the worst and most corrupt state of things.”[52] The people of these Cantons fill the idea of Bacon, as to innovation, “to follow the example of time itself, which indeed innovateth greatly, but quietly and by degrees scarce to be perceived.” Changes in established institutions must be considered in reference to existing interests, habits, manners, and modes of thinking. In vain should we try to promote the common weal by introducing alterations, however well designed, which have no hold on the feelings of the people, or are at variance with them, or which shock their deeply-seated prejudices. There are two different considerations involved: the propriety of retaining institutions merely because they have been sanctioned by our ancestors, or transmitted to us through a series of ages; and the propriety of retaining them because they are strongly settled in the actual habits, tastes, and prejudices of the people. While it would argue extreme imbecility, to spare cumbrous or hurtful institutions on no better ground than the former, it is absolutely indispensable to pay a cautious regard to the latter. The existing habits, tastes, and prejudices of the community, equally with the universal properties of human nature, are material elements of the politician’s calculations. They are all sources of pleasure and pain, all springs of action which call, on his part, for tender handling and accurate appreciation. There is scarcely a question in the whole compass of politics on which there is a greater unanimity among philosophers and statesmen than there is on the policy of cautious and gradual, in opposition to rash and sudden, reforms on the one hand, and to a pertinacious retention of incongruities and abuses on the other. As to the improvements which are to be introduced into a political system, their quantity and their period must be determined by the degree of knowledge existing in any country, and the state of preparation of the public mind for the changes that are to be desired. A passage in the correspondence of Mr. Jefferson contains a highly instructive exposition of his opinion on this subject, expressed in his happiest manner: “I am certainly,”