Page:A Vindication of Natural Society - Burke (1756).djvu/110

 discharged our Duty in exposing the trifling Cheats, and ridiculous Juggles of a few mad, designing, or ambitious Priests? Alas! my, we labour under a mortal Consumption, whilst we are so anxious about the Cure of a sore Finger. For has not this Leviathan of Civil Power overflowed the Earth with a Deluge of Blood, as if he were made to disport and play therein? We have shewn, that Political Society, on a moderate Calculation, has been the Means of murdering an hundred and forty times the Number of Inhabitants now upon the Earth, during it's short Existence, not upwards of four thousand Years in any Accounts to be depended on. But we have said nothing of the other, and perhaps as bad Consequence of these Wars, which spilled such Seas of Blood, and reduced so many Millions to a merciless Slavery. But these are only the Ceremonies performed in the Porch of the Political Temple. Much more horrid ones are seen as you enter it. The several Species of Government vie