CHAP. XI.: Natural Effects of the Goodness and Corruption of the Principles of Government.

WHEN once the principles of government are corrupted, the very best laws become bad, and turn against the state: but, when the principles are sound, even bad laws have the same effect as good; the force of the principle draws every thing to it.

The inhabitants of Crete used a very singular method, to keep the principal magistrates dependent on the laws; which was that of insurrection. Part of the citizens rose up in arms, Aristot. Polit. book 2, chap. 10. ^†258 put the magistrates

to flight, and obliged them to return to a private life. This was supposed to be done in consequence of the law. One would have imagined that an institution of this nature, which established sedition to hinder the abuse of power, would have subverted any republic whatsoever; and yet it did not subvert that of Crete. The reason is this: They always united immediately against foreign enemies; which was called syncretism. Plut. Mor. p. 88. ^†259

When the ancients would express a people that had the strongest affection for their country, they were sure to mention the inhabitants of Crete: Our country, said Plato, Repub. lib. 9. ^†260 a name so dear to the Cretans. They called it by a name which signifies the love of a mother for her children. Plutarch’s Morals, treatise whether a man advanced in years ought to meddle with public affairs. ^†261 Now, the love of our country sets every thing to right.

The laws of Poland have likewise their insurrection: but the inconveniences thence arising plainly shew that the people of Crete alone were capable of using such a remedy with success.

The gymnic exercises, established among the Greeks, had the same dependence on the goodness of the principle of government. “It was the Lacedæmonians and Cretans (said Plato Repub. lib. 5. ^†262) that opened those celebrated academies which gave them so eminent a rank in the world. Modesty at first was alarmed; but it yielded to the public utility.” In Plato’s time these institutions were admirable, The gymnic art was divided into two parts, dancing and wrestling. In Crete they had the armed dances of the Curetes; at Sparta they had those of Castor and Pollux; at Athens the armed dances of Pallas, which were extremely proper for those that were not yet of age for military service. Wrestling is the image of war, said Plato, of laws, book 7. He commends antiquity for having established only two dances, the pacific and the Pyrrhic. See how the latter dance was applied to the military art, Plato, ibid. ^†263 as they had a relation to a very important

object, which was the military art. But, when virtue fled from Greece, the military art was destroyed by these institutions; people appeared then on the arena, not for improvement, but for debauch. . . . . . . Aut libidinosæ Ledaeas Lacedæmonis palæstras. Mart. lib. 4, ep. 55. ^†264

Plutarch informs us, Plutarch’s Morals, in the treatise entitled, Questions concerning the affairs of the Romans. ^†265 that the Romans in his time were of opinion that those games had been the principal cause of the slavery into which the Greeks were fallen. On the contrary, it was the slavery of the Greeks that corrupted those exercises. In Plutarch’s time Ibid. ^†266 their fighting naked in the parks, and their wrestling, infected the young people with a spirit of cowardice, inclined them to infamous passions, and made them mere dancers: but, under Epaminondas, the exercise of wrestling made the Thebans win the famous battle of Leuctra. Plutarch’s Morals, Table Propositions, book 2. ^†267

There are very few laws which are not good, while the state retains its principles. Here I may apply what Epicurus said of riches: “It is not the liquor, but the vessel, that is corrupted.”