And unless they had done so,
young societies could not have subsisted; without such nursing
fathers tender and careful of the public weal, all governments
would have sunk under the weakness and infirmities of their
infancy, and the prince and the people had soon perished
together.
Sec. 111. But though the golden age (before vain ambition,
and amor sceleratus habendi, evil concupiscence, had corrupted
men's minds into a mistake of true power and honour) had more
virtue, and consequently better governors, as well as less
vicious subjects, and there was then no stretching prerogative on
the one side, to oppress the people; nor consequently on the
other, any dispute about privilege, to lessen or restrain the
power of the magistrate, and so no contest betwixt rulers and
people about governors or goveernment: yet, when ambition and
luxury in future ages* would retain and increase the power,
without doing the business for which it was given; and aided by
flattery, taught princes to have distinct and separate interests
from their people, men found it necessary to examine more
carefully the original and rights of government; and to find out
ways to restrain the exorbitances, and prevent the abuses of that
power, which they having intrusted in another's hands only for
their own good, they found was made use of to hurt them.
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