n that it receives its
institutions at first, and upon one man that all similar reconstruction
must depend. For this reason the wise founder of a commonwealth who
seeks to benefit not himself only, or the line of his descendants,
but his State and country, must endeavour to acquire an absolute and
undivided authority. And none who is wise will ever blame any action,
however extraordinary and irregular, which serves to lay the foundation
of a kingdom or to establish a republic. For although the act condemn
the doer, the end may justify him; and when, as in the case of Romulus,
the end is good, it will always excuse the means; since it is he who
does violence with intent to injure, not he who does it with the design
to secure tranquility, who merits blame. Such a person ought however
to be so prudent and moderate as to avoid transmitting the absolute
authority he acquires, as an inheritance to another; for as men are,
by nature, more prone to evil than to good, a successor may turn to
ambitious ends the power which his predecessor has used to promote
worthy ends. Moreover, though it be one man that must give a State its
institutions, once given they are not so likely to last long resting for
support on the shoulders of one man only, as when entrusted to the care
of many, and when it is the business of many to maintain them. For
though the multitude be unfit to set a State in order, since they
cannot, by reason of the divisions which prevail among them, agree
wherein the true well-being of the State lies, yet when they have once
been taught the truth, they never will consent to abandon it. And that
Romulus, though he put his brother to death, is yet of those who are to
be pardoned, since what he did was done for the common good and not from
personal ambition, is shown by his at once creating a senate, with whom
he took counsel, and in accordance with whose voice he determined. And
whosoever shall well examine the authority which Romulus reserved to
himself, will find that he reserved nothing beyond the command of the
army when war was resolved on, and the right to assemble the senate.
This is seen later, on Rome becoming free by the expulsion of the
Tarquins, when the Romans altered none of their ancient institutions
save in appointing two consuls for a year instead of a king for life;
for this proves that all the original institutions of that city were
more in conformity with a free and constitutional government, than with