MODERN POLICY. 283 



Now the politician is never without such an 

 advocate as this ; for he cares not to distinguish, 

 whether the necessity be of his own creating or 

 no, as for the most part it is, being indeed an 

 appendix to the wrong he undertakes, and sig- 

 nifies no more than that he is compelled to 

 cover wrong with wrong, as if the commission 

 of a second sin were enough to justify the first. 



He changes that old charitable advice : Be- 

 nefacta benefactis aliis pertegito ne perpluant ; into 

 vitia vitiis aliis pertegito ne perpluant: that so, 

 heaping one crime upon another, the latter may 

 defend the former from the stroke of justice. 



He adores the maxim in Livy : * That war 

 must needs be just that is necessary, and those 

 arms pious that are all our livelihood.'* It were 

 very incongruous to desire that man to leave his 

 crutch, that cannot walk without ; it is no less 

 unnatural to invite him to quit his sword, whose 

 life and fortune lean entirely upon it. 



If he can insinuate the scope of the war to be 

 legal, a little daubing will serve to legalize the 

 circumstances : that of the civilians must be re- 

 membered : ' Nothing is unlawful in war, that 

 serves the end and design of it I'f the oracles of 



* Justum est bellum quibus necessarium^ et pia arma quibus 

 in armis spes est. 



f Licere in bello quae ad finem sunt necessaria. Victor, de 

 jure belli, n. 18. 39. 



