Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/167

ſuch an aſſmbly will, upon the firſt day of its exiſtence, be an ariſtocracy; in a few days, or years at leaſt, an oligarchy; and then it will ſoon divide into two or three parties, who will ſoon have as many armies; and, when the battle is decided, the victorious general will govern without or with the advice of any council or aſſembly, as he pleaſes: or, if the aſſembly continues united, they will in time exclude the people from all ſhare even in elections, and make the government hereditary in a few families. In order to be fully convinced of this, we muſt take an extenſive view of the ſubject; and the firſt enquiry ſhould be, what kind of beings men are? You and I admire the fable of [[Triſtram Shandy]] more than the fable of the Bees, and agree with Butler rather than Hobbes. It is weakneſs rather than wickedneſs which renders men unfit to be truſted with unlimited power. The paſſions are all unlimited; nature has left them ſo: if they could be bounded, they would be extinct; and there is no doubt they are of indiſpenſable importance in the preſent ſyſtem. They certainly increaſe too, by exerciſe, like the body. The love of gold grows faſter than the heap of acquiſition: the love of praiſe increaſes by every gratification, till it ſtings like an adder, and bites like a ſerpent; till the man is miſerable every moment when he does not ſnuff the incenſe: ambition ſtrengthens at every advance, and at laſt takes poſſeſſion of the whole ſoul ſo abſolutely, that the man ſees nothing in the world of importance to others, or himſelf, but in his object. The ſubtilty of theſe three paſſions, which have been ſelected from all the others becauſe they are ariſtocratical paſſions, in ſubduing all others,

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