When we pass from the works of nature, in which all the delineations are
perfectly accurate, and appear to be otherwise only from the
imperfection of the eye which surveys them, to the institutions of man,
in which the obscurity arises as well from the object itself as from the
organ by which it is contemplated, we must perceive the necessity of
moderating still further our expectations and hopes from the efforts of
human sagacity. Experience has instructed us that no skill in the
science of government has yet been able to discriminate and define, with
sufficient certainty, its three great provinces the legislative,
executive, and judiciary; or even the privileges and powers of the
different legislative branches. Questions daily occur in the course of
practice, which prove the obscurity which reins in these subjects, and
which puzzle the greatest adepts in political science.
The experience of ages, with the continued and combined labors of the
most enlightened legislatures and jurists, has been equally unsuccessful
in delineating the several objects and limits of different codes of laws
and different tribunals of justice.
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