Page:Thoughts on civil liberty, on licentiousness and faction.djvu/49

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Civil Liberty, &c.
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of Men, and were often laid in Wait for, and butchered in cold Blood by the young Men of Sparta.[1]

These were the public and essential Institutions of the Spartan Republic: Many of them strange in their Nature: Yet formed for long Duration, through the Means and Principles on which they were established: Which we shall find to be consistent with, and corroborative of the Principles of civil Liberty above laid down.

The first and best Security of civil Liberty, hath been shewn to consist "in impressing the infant Mind with such Habits of Thought and Action, as may correspond with and promote the Appointments of public Law."—This Security was laid by Lycurgus, in the

  1. This Enormity, practised with Impunity by the young Men of Sparta, hath been held unaccountable: But seems to have been allowed on the same warlike Principle with That other Allowance "of stealing Victuals." Both were probably established as the Means of preparing them for the Exercise of Stratagem in War.