Page:Essays, Moral and Political - David Hume (1741).djvu/121

 have such a Propensity to divide into personal Factions, that the smallest Appearance of real Difference will beget them. What can be imagined more trivial than the Difference betwixt one Colour of Livery and another in Horse-Races? And yet this Difference begot two most inveterate Factions in the Greek Empire, the Prasini and Veneti, who never suspended their Animosities, 'till they ruined that unhappy Government.

is more usual than to see Parties, which have begun upon a real Difference, continue even after that Difference is lost. When Men are once inlisted on different Sides, they contract an Affection to the Persons with whom they are united, and an Animosity against their Antagonists: And these Passions they often transmit to their Posterity. The real Difference betwixt Guelf and Ghibbelline was long lost in Italy, before these Factions were extinguished. The Guelfs adher'd to the Pope, the Ghibbellines to the Emperor; and yet the Family of Sforsa, who were in Alliance with the Emperor, though they were Guelfs, being expelled Milan by the King of