"make them good; for, if men were ſo of themſelves, there would be no occaſion for laws; but, as the caſe is far otherwiſe, they are abſolutely neceſſary. After the Tarquins were dead, who had been ſuch a check upon the nobility, ſome other expedient was wanting to have the ſame effect; ſo that, after much confuſion and diſorder, and many dangerous conteſts between the patricians and plebeians, certain officers, called tribunes, were created for the ſecurity of the latter; who, being veſted with ſuch privileges and authority as enabled them to become arbiters betwixt thoſe two eſtates, effectually curbed the inſolence of the former:" or, in the language of Dr. Franklin, the people inſiſted upon hitching a yoke of cattle behind the waggon, to draw up hill, when the patricians before ſhould attempt to go too faſt: or, in the ſtile of Harrington, the commons, finding the patricians diſpoſed to divide the cake unequally, demanded the privilege of chooſing.
If Harrington's authority is not of great weight with ſome men, the reaſons he aſſigns in ſupport of his judgment are often eternal, and unanſwerable by any man. In his Oceana he ſays, "Be the intereſt of popular government right reaſon, a man does not look upon reaſon as it is right or wrong in itſelf, but as it makes for him or againſt him: wherefore, unleſs you can ſhew ſuch orders of a government, as, like thoſe of God in nature, ſhall be able to conſtrain this or that creature to ſhake off that inclination which is more peculiar to it, and take up that which regards the common good or intereſt; all this is to no more end, than to perſuade every man, in a popular government, not to carve for himſelf of that which he likes beſt or deſires moſt, but
