igS ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book 11. 



In fhort, their envy and jealcufy of men of fuperior merit went fo 

 far at laft, that thefe men could not live with them : And all their great 

 men in later times, fuch as Conon, Timotheus, and Iphicrates*, would 

 not live in the city, but chofe rather to go into a kind of voluntary 

 exile, excepting only Phocion, who lived with them indeed, but 

 was put to death by them, without fo much as being heard in his 

 defence. 



From what has been faid, I think it is evident, that a democrati- 

 cal government is not only in itfelf a very bad government, in my o- 

 pinion the worft government of any, but that it has an immediate 

 and dired tendency to corrupt the manners of the people fo governed. 

 The people of Athens, till their government became altogether de- 

 mocratical, were a magnanimous, noble minded people, as eminent 

 in virtue as they were in arms and arts : But, how much they 

 were degenerated from their anceftors, when they undertook to go- 

 vern themfelves, Demofthenes, in more than one oration, has in- 

 formed us*; and, indeed, the government was fuch, that it muft 

 have corrupted the bed people in the world : For every citizen of 

 Athens, without diftindlion of birth, rank, education, or fortune, was 

 entitled not only to a vote in the public affemblies, but to hold any 

 office of (late, even the office of fenator, and to be one of the coun- 

 cil of 500, (which was reckoned the great pillar of their ftate,) and 

 to hold every other office, with the exception only of the offices of 

 general or admiral, who were eleded by the people ; but even in their 

 election he had a vote. But as to all the other offices, they were 

 diftiibuted among the whole people by lot. So that in Athens, 



there 



* Upon this occafion Cornelius Nepos makes an excellent obfervation : « Eft hoc 

 ' commune vitium in mngnis liberifque civitatibus, ut invidia gloriae comes fit, et li- 

 « benter de his detrahant quos eminere videant altius ; neque animo aequo pauperes 

 ■* alienam opulentium intuentur fortunam'. — In vita Chabriac. 



I See Vol. VI. of Orig. of Lang. p. 3^57. and following. 



