Page:Thoughts on civil liberty, on licentiousness and faction.djvu/60

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Thoughts on

tical Writers [1]) hath been founded on a Supposition, that where Opinion is free, it must ever be divided. The Spartan Commonwealth presents a clear Proof of the Reverse: That Opinion may be free, yet still united. But this free Union can only be the happy Effect of an early and rigorous Education; by which the growing Minds of the Community are voluntarily led, by public Institutions, into one common Channel of Habit, Principle, and Action... Plutarch tells us, that the Effect of this entire Union was so conspicuous in Sparta, that "the Commonwealth resembled one great and powerful Person, actuated by one Soul, rather than a State composed of many Individuals.[2]"

4. It appears, that the Institutions of the Spartan Republic were admirably calculated for each other's Support, while

  1. Among others, by Machiavel and Montesquieu.
  2. In Lycurgo.