angers which surround them, and will
grow at once more daring, and less scrupulous in resorting to new
courses. For these reasons we should either altogether avoid inflicting
injury, or should inflict every injury at a stroke, and then seek to
reassure men's minds and suffer them to settle down and rest.

CHAPTER XLVI.--_That Men climb from one step of Ambition to another,
seeking at first to escape Injury and then to injure others._

As the commons of Rome on recovering their freedom were restored to
their former position--nay, to one still stronger since many new laws
had been passed which confirmed and extended their authority,--it might
reasonably have been hoped that Rome would for a time remain at rest.
The event, however, showed the contrary, for from day to day there arose
in that city new tumults and fresh dissensions. And since the causes
which brought this about have been most judiciously set forth by Titus
Livius, it seems to me much to the purpose to cite his own words when he
says, that "whenever either the commons or the nobles were humble, the
others grew haughty; so that if the commons kept within due bounds, the
young nobles began to inflict injuries upon them, against which the
tribunes, who were themselves made the objects of outrage, were little
able to give redress; while the nobles on their part, although they
could not close their eyes to the ill behaviour of their young men, were
yet well pleased that if excesses were to be committed, they should be
committed by their own faction, and not by the commons. Thus the desire
to secure its own liberty prompted each faction to make itself strong
enough to oppress the other. For this is the common course of things,
that in seeking to escape cause for fear, men come to give others cause
to be afraid by inflicting on them those wrongs from which they strive
to relieve themselves; as though the choice lay between injuring and
being injured."

Herein, among other things, we perceive in what ways commonwealths
are overthrown, and how men climb from one ambition to another; and
recognize the truth of those words which Sallust puts in the mouth of
Caesar, that "_all ill actions have their origin in fair beginnings._"
[1] For, as I have said already, the ambitious citizen in a
commonwealth seeks at the outset to secure himself against injury, not
only at the hands of private persons, but also of the magistrates; to
effect which he endeavours to gain himse