Part 2 (1/2)

[16] Est autem virtus nihil aliud quam in se perfecta atque ad summum perducta natura.--_Cic. de Leg._ lib. i. c. 8.

[17] Search's Light of Nature, by Abraham Tucker, esq., vol. i. pref. p.

x.x.xiii.

[18] Bacon, Dign. and Adv. of Learn. book ii.

[19] See on this subject an incomparable fragment of the first book of Cicero's Economics, which is too long for insertion here, but which, if it be closely examined, may perhaps dispel the illusion of those gentlemen, who have so strangely taken it for granted, that Cicero was incapable of exact reasoning.

[20] This progress is traced with great accuracy in some beautiful lines of Lucretius:

---- Mulier conjuncta viro concessit in unum, castaque privatae veneris connubia laeta cognita sunt, prolemque ex se videre coortam: TUM GENUS HUMANUM PRIMUM MOLLESCERE COEPIT.

---- puerisque parentum Blanditiis facile ingenium fregere superb.u.m.

_Tunc et amicitiam coeperunt jungere_ habentes Finitima inter se, nec laedere nec violare.

Et pueros commendarunt muliebreque seclum Vocibus et gestu c.u.m balbe significarent IMBECILLORUM ESSE aeQUUM MISERIER OMNIUM.

_Lucret._ lib. v. 1. 1010-22.

[21] The introduction to the first book of Aristotle's Politics is the best demonstration of the necessity of political society to the well-being, and indeed to the very being, of man, with which I am acquainted. Having shewn the circ.u.mstances which render man necessarily a social being, he justly concludes, ”[Greek: Kai oti anthropos physei politikon zoon.]”--_Arist. de Rep._ lib. i.

The same scheme of philosophy is admirably pursued in the short, but invaluable fragment of the sixth book of Polybius, which describes the history and revolutions of government.

[22] To the weight of these great names let me add the opinion of two ill.u.s.trious men of the present age, as both their opinions are combined by one of them in the following pa.s.sage: ”He (Mr. Fox) always thought any of the simple unbalanced governments bad; simple monarchy, simple aristocracy, simple democracy; he held them all imperfect or vicious, all were bad by themselves; the composition alone was good. These had been always his principles, in which he agreed with his friend, Mr.

Burke.”--_Mr. Fox on the Army Estimates_, 9th Feb. 1790.

In speaking of both these ill.u.s.trious men, whose names I here join, as they will be joined in fame by posterity, which will forget their temporary differences in the recollection of their genius and their friends.h.i.+p, I do not entertain the vain imagination that I can add to their glory by any thing that I can say. But it is a gratification to me to give utterance to my feelings; to express the profound veneration with which I am filled for the memory of the one, and the warm affection which I cherish for the other, whom no one ever heard in public without admiration, or knew in private life without loving.