d a monarchical form; if many of
pretty equal eminence out-topped all the rest, they were jointly
elected, and this election produced an aristocracy; those, between
whose fortune or talents there happened to be no such disproportion,
and who had deviated less from the state of nature, retained in common
the supreme administration, and formed a democracy. Time demonstrated
which of these forms suited mankind best. Some remained altogether
subject to the laws; others soon bowed their necks to masters. The
former laboured to preserve their liberty; the latter thought of
nothing but invading that of their neighbours, jealous at seeing
others enjoy a blessing which themselves had lost. In a word, riches
and conquest fell to the share of the one, and virtue and happiness to
that of the other.

In these various modes of government the offices at first were all
elective; and when riches did not preponderate, the preference was
given to merit, which gives a natural ascendant, and to age, which is
the parent of deliberateness in council, and experience in execution.
The ancients among the Hebrews, the Geronts of Sparta, the Senate of
Rome, nay, the very etymology of our word seigneur, show how much gray
hairs were formerly respected. The oftener the choice fell upon old
men, the oftener it became necessary to repeat it, and the more the
trouble of such repetitions became sensible; electioneering took
place; factions arose; the parties contracted ill blood; civil wars
blazed forth; the lives of the citizens were sacrificed to the
pretended happiness of the state; and things at last came to such a
pass, as to be ready to relapse into their primitive confusion. The
ambition of the principal men induced them to take advantage of these
circumstances to perpetuate the hitherto temporary charges in their
families; the people already inured to dependence, accustomed to ease
and the conveniences of life, and too much enervated to break their
fetters, consented to the increase of their slavery for the sake of
securing their tranquillity; and it is thus that chiefs, become
hereditary, contracted the habit of considering magistracies as a
family estate, and themselves as proprietors of those communities, of
which at first they were but mere officers; to call their
fellow-citizens their slaves; to look upon them, like so many cows or
sheep, as a part of their substance; and to style themselves the peers
of Gods, and Kings of Kings.

By pur