There are men amongst the class of the levellers possessed of powerful will and determination. The doctrinaires are never to be found in their ranks. Although the former are more to be feared in times of action, the latter present greater dangers in those times of deceptive calm which, as is the case with physical storms, precede storms in the social order. Forever wedded to abstract ideas which can never be applied to real needs and are generally in contradiction with those very needs, it is men of this class who ceaselessly stir up the people by their imaginary or feigned fears and destabilise Governments to force them to abandon the right course. The world wishes to be governed by deeds and according to justice, not with fine words and theories: the prime need of society is to be maintained through strong authority (any authority without real force is not worth the name) and not to govern itself. If we add up the number of conflicts in which parties in mixed Governments engage and the number of complaints, well-founded in law, to which the aberration of power in a Christian state can give rise, such a comparison is not likely to turn out to the advantage of doctrines. The first and the most important matter for the vast majority of any nation is the immutability of the law and its uninterrupted implementation and not by any means its change. Let Governments then govern, let them maintain the basic fundamentals of their institutions, old as well as new, because if throughout the ages it has been dangerous to tamper with these things, then it cannot be helpful to do so today, when turbulence is widespread.
Let them state clearly before their people this determination and let them demonstrate it through their deeds. Let them reduce to silence those doctrinaires within the boundaries of their states and let them make plain their contempt for those from outside. Let them not through their demeanour or through their actions give rise to the suspicion of being in favour of or indifferent to error; let them not allow it to be thought that experience may have lost all its rights to make way for trial procedures which are at the very least risky. Let them be clear and precise in all that they say and let them not seek to win over through concessions parties whose only aim is the destruction of all power that does not belong to them, parties who cannot be won over by concessions which will always embolden them in their pretensions to power.
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