BOOK III PART II
authority, and an illegal assuming a power for
public good, which, in the ordinary course of
government, can belong to no member of the
constitution. When the public good is so great
and so evident as to justify the action, the com-
mendable use of this licence causes us natu-
rally to attribute to the parliament a right of us-
ing farther licences; and the antient bounds of
the laws being once transgressed with appro-
bation, we are not apt to be so strict in confin-
ing ourselves precisely within their limits. The
mind naturally runs on with any train of action,
which it has begun; nor do we commonly make
any scruple concerning our duty, after the first
action of any kind, which we perform. Thus at
the revolution, no one who thought the depo-
sition of the father justifiable, esteemed them-
selves to be confined to his infant son; though
had that unhappy monarch died innocent at