All that part of its organisation which it had committed to its government, devolves again upon itself, and acts through its medium.

When men, as well from natural instinct as from reciprocal benefits, have habituated themselves to social and civilised life, there is always enough of its principles in practice to carry them through any changes they may find necessary or convenient to make in their government.

In short, man is so naturally a creature of society that it is almost impossible to put him out of it.
Formal government makes but a small part of civilised life; and when even the best that human wisdom can devise is established, it is a thing more in name and idea than in fact.

It is to the great and fundamental principles of society and civilisation--to the common usage universally consented to, and mutually and reciprocally maintained--to the unceasing circulation of interest, which, passing through its million channels, invigorates the whole mass of civilised man--it is to these things, infinitely more than to anything which even the best instituted government can perform, that the safety and prosperity of the individual and of the whole depends.
The more perfect civilisation is, the less occasion has it for government, because the more does it regulate its own affairs, and govern itself; but so contrary is the practice of old governments to the reason of the case, that the expenses of them increase in the proportion they ought to diminish.

It is but few general laws that civilised life requires, and those of such common usefulness, that whether they are enforced by the forms of government or not, the effect will be nearly the same.