Page:Thoughts on civil liberty, on licentiousness and faction.djvu/152

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Thoughts on

litical Necessity of yielding; 'tis clearly both his Duty and his Interest to oppose this dangerous and encroaching Spirit, in the leading Outlines of his public Conduct.

It is his Duty; both because Corruption can only flourish on the Ruins of Virtue and Religion, good Morals and Principles, without which public Liberty is essentially destroy'd; and because Corruption tends inevitably and invariably to weaken the public Administration of Government, by filling every high Department with the Venal, the Ignorant, the Selfish, the Dishonest.[1]

It is both his Duty and Interest; because Licentiousness, and its Attendants, Venality and Faction, are of an insatiable Appetite. The more the Venal are fed, they grow more importunate: If you gorge one of These to the full, and thus lay him to sleep; ten will rise in his Place, every one more clamourous than the first.

  1. See Estimate, Part ii.