CHAP. XVII.: The same Subject continued.

OSTRACISM ought to be examined by the rules of politics, and not by those of the civil law; and so far is this custom from rendering a popular government odious, that it is, on the contrary, extremely

well adapted to prove its lenity. We should be sensible of this ourselves, if, while banishment is always considered amongst us as a penalty, we are able to separate the idea of ostracism from that of punishment.

Aristotle Repub. lib. iii. cap. 13. ^†462 tells us, it is universally allowed, that this practice has something in it both humane and popular. If in those times and places where this sentence was executed, they found nothing in it that appeared odious; is it for us, who see things at such a distance, to think otherwise than the accuser, the judges, and the accused themselves?

And if we consider that this judgment of the people loaded the person with glory on whom it was passed; that when at Athens it fell upon a man without Hyperbolus. See Plurarch, life of Aristides. ^†463 merit, from that very moment they ceased to It was found opposite to the spirit of the legislator. ^†464 use it; we shall find that numbers of people have entertained a false idea of it; for it was an admirable law that could prevent the ill consequences which the glory of a citizen might produce, by loading him with new glory.