LETTER XXXI.
ANCIENT REPUBLICS, AND OPINIONS
OF PHILOSOPHERS.
My dear Sir,
THE generation and corruption of governments, which may in other words be called the progreſs and courſe of human paſſions in ſociety, are ſubjects which have engaged the attention of the greateſt writers; and whether the eſſays they have left us were copied from hiſtorv, or wrought out of their own conjectures and reaſonings, they are very much to our purpoſe, to ſhew the utility and neceſſity of different orders of men, and of an equilibrium of powers and privileges. They demonſtrate the corruptibility of every ſpecies of ſimple government, by which I mean a power without a check, whether in one, a few, or many. It might be ſufficient to ſhew this tendency in ſimple democracy alone, for ſuch is the government of one aſſembly, whether of the people collectively or repreſentatively: but as the generation and corruption of all kinds of government have a ſimilitude with one another, and proceed from the ſame qualities in human nature, it will throw the more light upon our ſubject, the more particularly we examine it. I ſhall confine myſelf chiefly to Plato, Polybius, and your nameſake Sir Thomas Smith.
Polybius thinks it manifeſt, both from reaſon and experience, that the beſt form of government is not ſimple, but compounded, becauſe of the
