Most legislators have been men of limited abilities who have become leaders by chance, and have scarcely taken anything into account except their own whims and prejudices. They seem not even to have been aware of the grandeur and dignity of the task: they have passed the time making puerile regulations, which, it is true, have satisfied those without much intelligence, but have discredited them with men of sense.
They have buried themselves in useless detail
and descended to particular cases: this indicates lack of vision, which means
seeing things partially and never taking a comprehensive view. …
They have often abolished unnecessarily the
laws that they found in force, and this meant throwing their countries into the
confusion that is inseparable from change.[1]
Usbek to
Rhedi, at Venice in Montesquieu, Persian
Letters (1721)
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