ded into contending corps of orders, classes, families,
unremittingly struggled to appropriate to themselves, under the name
of supreme power, the ability to plunder every thing, and render every
thing subservient to the dictates of their passions; and this spirit of
encroachment, disguised under all possible forms, but always the same in
its object and motives, has never ceased to torment the nations.

Sometimes, opposing itself to all social compact, or breaking that
which already existed, it committed the inhabitants of a country to the
tumultuous shock of all their discords; and states thus dissolved, and
reduced to the condition of anarchy, were tormented by the passions of
all their members.

Sometimes a nation, jealous of its liberty, having appointed agents to
administer its government, these agents appropriated the powers of which
they had only the guardianship: they employed the public treasures in
corrupting elections, gaining partisans, in dividing the people among
themselves. By these means, from being temporary they became perpetual;
from elective, hereditary; and the state, agitated by the intrigues of
the ambitious, by largesses from the rich and factious, by the venality
of the poor and idle, by the influence of orators, by the boldness of
the wicked, and the weakness of the virtuous, was convulsed with all the
inconveniences of democracy.

The chiefs of some countries, equal in strength and mutually fearing
each other, formed impious pacts, nefarious associations; and,
apportioning among themselves all power, rank, and honor, unjustly
arrogated privileges and immunities; erected themselves into separate
orders and distinct classes; reduced the people to their control; and,
under the name of aristocracy, the state was tormented by the passions
of the wealthy and the great.

Sacred impostors, in other countries, tending by other means to the
same object, abused the credulity of the ignorant. In the gloom of their
temples, behind the curtain of the altar, they made their gods act and
speak; gave forth oracles, worked miracles, ordered sacrifices, levied
offerings, prescribed endowments; and, under the names of theocracy and
of religion, the state became tormented by the passions of the priests.

Sometimes a nation, weary of its dissensions or of its tyrants, to
lessen the sources of evil, submitted to a single master; but if it
limited his powers, his sole aim was to enlarge them; if it left them
ind