hundred, but manners, in common and received
use, so ferocious, especially in inhumanity and treachery, which are to
me the worst of all vices, that I have not the heart to think of them
without horror; and almost as much admire as I detest them: the exercise
of these signal villainies carries with it as great signs of vigour and
force of soul, as of error and disorder. Necessity reconciles and brings
men together; and this accidental connection afterwards forms itself into
laws: for there have been such, as savage as any human opinion could
conceive, who, nevertheless, have maintained their body with as much
health and length of life as any Plato or Aristotle could invent. And
certainly, all these descriptions of polities, feigned by art, are found
to be ridiculous and unfit to be put in practice.

These great and tedious debates about the best form of society, and the
most commodious rules to bind us, are debates only proper for the
exercise of our wits; as in the arts there are several subjects which
have their being in agitation and controversy, and have no life but
there. Such an idea of government might be of some value in a new world;
but we take a world already made, and formed to certain customs; we do
not beget it, as Pyrrha or Cadmus did. By what means soever we may have
the privilege to redress and reform it anew, we can hardly writhe it from
its wonted bent, but we shall break all. Solon being asked whether he
had established the best laws he could for the Athenians; "Yes," said he,
"of those they would have received." Varro excuses himself after the
same manner: "that if he were to begin to write of religion, he would say
what he believed; but seeing it was already received, he would write
rather according to use than nature."

Not according to opinion, but in truth and reality, the best and most
excellent government for every nation is that under which it is
maintained: its form and essential convenience depend upon custom.
We are apt to be displeased at the present condition; but I,
nevertheless, maintain that to desire command in a few--[an oligarchy.]--
in a republic, or another sort of government in monarchy than that
already established, is both vice and folly:

"Ayme l'estat, tel que to le veois estre
S'il est royal ayme la royaute;
S'il est de peu, ou biers communaute,
Ayme l'aussi; car Dieu t'y a faict naistre."

["Love the