sting treatise on _Human Nature_, perhaps, shows it at
its best. The author's exceptional clearness may be assisted by his lavish
use of italics; but it is not necessary to read far in order to see that it
is in reality quite independent of any clumsy mechanical device. The
crabbed but sharply outlined style, the terse phrasing, the independence of
all after-thoughts and tackings-on, manifest themselves at once to any
careful observer. Here for instance is a passage, perhaps his finest, on
Love, followed by a political extract from another work:--

"Of love, by which is to be understood the joy man taketh in the
fruition of any present good, hath been spoken already in the
first section, chapter seven, under which is contained the love
men bear to one another or pleasure they take in one another's
company: and by which nature men are said to be sociable. But
there is another kind of love which the Greeks call Eros, and is
that which we mean when we say that a man is in love: forasmuch
as this passion cannot be without diversity of sex, it cannot be
denied but that it participateth of that indefinite love
mentioned in the former section. But there is a great difference
betwixt the desire of a man indefinite and the same desire
limited _ad hunc_: and this is that love which is the great theme
of poets: but, notwithstanding their praises, it must be defined
by the word need: for it is a conception a man hath of his need
of that one person desired. The cause of this passion is not
always nor for the most part beauty, or other quality in the
beloved, unless there be withal hope in the person that loveth:
which may be gathered from this, that in great difference of
persons the greater have often fallen in love with the meaner,
but not contrary. And from hence it is that for the most part
they have much better fortune in love whose hopes are built on
something in their person than those that trust to their
expressions and service; and they that care less than they that
care more: which not perceiving, many men cast away their
services as one arrow after another, till, in the end, together
with their hopes, they lose their wits."

* * * * *

"There are some who therefore imagine monarchy to be more
grievous than democracy, because there is less liberty in th