"'Imperium Oceano, famam quoe terminet astris.'
"Rome was said to be broken by her own weight, but
poetically; for that weight by which she was pretended to be
ruined was supported in her emperors by a far slighter
foundation. And in the common experience of good architecture,
there is nothing more known than that buildings stand the firmer
and the longer for their own weight, nor ever swerve through any
other internal cause than that their materials are corruptible;
but the people never die, nor, as a political body, are subject
to any other corruption than that which derives from their
government. Unless a man will deny the chain of causes, in which
he denies God, he must also acknowledge the chain of effects;
wherefore there can be no effect in nature that is not from the
first cause, and those successive links of the chain without
which it could not have been. Now except a man can show the
contrary in a commonwealth, if there be no cause of corruption in
the first make of it, there can never be any such effect. Let no
man's superstition impose profaneness upon this assertion; for as
man is sinful, but yet the universe is perfect, so may the
citizen be sinful, and yet the commonwealth be perfect. And as
man, seeing the world is perfect, can never commit any such sin
as shall render it imperfect, or bring it to a natural
dissolution, so the citizen, where the commonwealth is perfect,
can never commit any such crime as will render it imperfect, or
bring it to a natural dissolution.
Pages:
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367