they are the chief caufes of all the mifchiefs he does. Tertullian fays they they are "" metu quam furore "fæviores;" and Tacitus, fpeaking of a moft wicked * king, fays, that he did “ fævitiam ignaviæ obtendere ‡ ;” and we do not more certainly find, that cowards are the cruelleft of men, than that wickedness makes them cowards; that every man's fears bear a proportion with his guilt, and with the number, virtue, and ftrength, of, thofe he has offended. He who ufurps a power over all, or abuses a truft repofed in him by all, in the highest measure offends all; he fears and hates those he has offended, and to fecure himself, aggravates the former injuries when thefe are public, they beget a univerfal hatred, and every man defires to extinguish a mischief that threatens ruin to all. This will always be terrible to one that knows he has deferved it; and when thofe he dreads are the body of the people, nothing but a public deftruction can fatisfy his rage, and appeafe his fears. I wish I could agree with Filmer, in exempting multitudes from fears;. for they having feldom committed ány injuftice, unlefs through fear, would, as far as human frugality permits, be free from it. Though the Attic oftracifm was not an extreme punishment, I know nothing ufually practifed in any commonwealth, that did fo much favour of injuftice: but it proceeded folely from a fear that one man, though in appearance virtuous, * Gotarzes. Tac. Ann. 1. xii. c. 10. The words in Tacitus are fomewhat different, "dum focors domi, "bellis infauftus," " IGNAVIAM SÆVITIA TEGAT;" which give quite another fenfe, and very foreign to the point. whon when he came to be raised too much above his fellowcitizens, might be tempted to invade the public liberty. We do not find, that the Athenians, or any other free cities, ever injured any man, unless through fuch a jealoufy, or the perjury of witneffes, by which the best tri bunals that ever were, or can be established in the world, may be mifled; and no injuftice could be apprehended from any, if they did not fall into fuch fears. But though multitudes may have fears as well as tyrants, the caufes and effects of them are very different, A people, in relation to domestic affairs, can defire nothing but liberty, and neither hate or fear any but such as do, or would, as they fufpect, deprive them of that happiness: their endeavours to fecure that feldom hurt any except fuch as invade their rights; and if they err, the mistake is for the most part discovered before it produce any mischief; and the greatest that ever came that way, was the death of one or a few men. Their hatred and defire of revenge can go no farther than the sense of the injury received or feared, and is extinguished by the death or banishment of the perfons; as may be gathered from the examples of the Tarquins, decemviri, Caffius, Melius, and Manlius Capitolinus. He therefore that would know whether the hatred and fear of a tyrant, or of a people, produces the greater mifchiefs, needs only to confider, whether it be better, that the tyrant deftroy the people, or that the people deftroy the tyrant; or at the worst, whether one that is fufpected of affecting the tyranny fhould perifh, or a whole people, amongst whom very many are certainly innocent; and experience fhews, that that fuch are always first fought out to be deftroyed for being fo: popular furies or fears, how irregular or unjust soever they may be, can extend no farther; general calamities can only be brought upon a people by those who are enemies to the whole body, which can never be the multitude, for they are that body. In all other refpects, the fears that render a tyrant cruel, render a people gentle and cautious; for every fingle man knowing himself to be of little power, not only fears to do injustice because it may be revenged upon his perfon, by him, or his friends, kindred, and relations, that fuffers it; but be cause it tends to the overthrow of the government, which comprchends all public and private concernments, and which every man knows cannot fubfift unless it be fo eafy and gentle, as to be pleafing to those who are the best, and have the greatest power: and as the public confiderations divert them from doing those injuries that may bring immediate prejudice to the public, so there are ftrict laws to restrain all fuch as would do private injuries. If neither the people nor the magiftrates of Venice, Switzerland, and Holland, commit fuch extravagancies as are usual in other places, it does not perhaps proceed from the temper of those nations different from others, but from a knowledge, that whofoever offers an injury to a private person, or attempts a public mifchief, is expofed to the impartial and inexorable power of the law; whereas the chief work of an abfolute monarch is to place himself above the law, and thereby rendering himfelf the author of all the evils that the people fuffer, it is abfurd to expect that he should remove them.. SECT. SECT. XXX. A monarchy cannot be well regulated, unless the powers of the monarch are limited by law. OUR author's next step is not only to reject popular governments, but all fuch monarchies as are not abfolute; "for if the king," fays he, "admits the people to be his companions, he leaves to be a king." This is the language of French lackeys, valet-de-chambres, taylors, and others like them in wisdom, learning, and policy, who when they fly to England for fear of a well-deferved gally, gibbet, or wheel, are ready to fay, "Il faut que "le roit foit abfolu, autrement il n'eft point roy." And finding no better men to agree with Filmer in this fublime philofophy, I may be pardoned if I do not follow them, till I am convinced in thefe enfuing points. 1. It seems abfurd to speak of kings admitting the nobility or people to part of the government: for though there may be, and are, nations without kings, yet no man can conceive a king without a people. These must heceffarily have all the power originally in themselves; and though kings may and often have a power of granting honours, immunities, and privileges, to private men or corporations, he does it only out of the public stock, which he is entrusted to diftribute; but can give nothing to the people, who give to him all that he can rightly have. 2. It is ftrange, that he who frequently cites Arif totle totle and Plato, fhould unluckily acknowledge, fuch only to be kings as they call tyrants, and deny the name of king to thofe, who, in their opinion, are the only king. 3. I cannot understand why the Scripture fhould call thofe kings whofe powers were limited, if they only are kings who are abfolute; or why Mofes did appoint, that the power of kings in Ifrael should be limited (if they refolved to have them*), if that limitation deftroyed the being of a king. 4. And lastly, how he knows, that in the kingdoms which have a fhew of popularity, the power is wholly in the king. The first point was proved when we examined the beginning of monarchies, and found it impoffible that there could be any thing of juftice in them, unless they were established by the common consent of those who were to live under them; or that they could make any fuch estament, unless the right and power were in them. Secondly, Neither Plato nor Ariftotle acknowledge either reason or justice in the power of a monarch unless he has more of the virtues conducing to the good of the civil fociety than all those who compofe it: and employ them for the public advantage, and not to his own pleasure and profit, as being fet up by those who feek their own good, for no other reason than that he should procure it. To this end a law is fet as a rule to him, and the best men, that is such as are moft like to himself, made to be * Deut. xvii. |