some such
proclamation as the following: Mankind must have laws, and conform to
them, or their life would be as bad as that of the most savage beast.
And the reason of this is that no man's nature is able to know what is
best for human society; or knowing, always able and willing to do what
is best. In the first place, there is a difficulty in apprehending that
the true art of politics is concerned, not with private but with public
good (for public good binds together states, but private only distracts
them); and that both the public and private good as well of individuals
as of states is greater when the state and not the individual is first
considered. In the second place, although a person knows in the abstract
that this is true, yet if he be possessed of absolute and irresponsible
power, he will never remain firm in his principles or persist in
regarding the public good as primary in the state, and the private good
as secondary. Human nature will be always drawing him into avarice and
selfishness, avoiding pain and pursuing pleasure without any reason, and
will bring these to the front, obscuring the juster and better; and so
working darkness in his soul will at last fill with evils both him and
the whole city. For if a man were born so divinely gifted that he could
naturally apprehend the truth, he would have no need of laws to rule
over him; for there is no law or order which is above knowledge, nor can
mind, without impiety, be deemed the subject or slave of any man, but
rather the lord of all. I speak of mind, true and free, and in harmony
with nature. But then there is no such mind anywhere, or at least not
much; and therefore we must choose law and order, which are second
best. These look at things as they exist for the most part only, and
are unable to survey the whole of them. And therefore I have spoken as I
have.

And now we will determine what penalty he ought to pay or suffer who has
hurt or wounded another. Any one may easily imagine the questions which
have to be asked in all such cases: What did he wound, or whom, or
how, or when? for there are innumerable particulars of this sort which
greatly vary from one another. And to allow courts of law to determine
all these things, or not to determine any of them, is alike impossible.
There is one particular which they must determine in all cases--the
question of fact. And then, again, that the legislator should not permit
them to determine what punishment i