Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/170

132 though true, to ay, that virtue itelf has need of limits? To prevent the abue of power, it is neceary, that, by the very dipoition of things, power hould be a check to power. A government may be o contituted, as no man hall be compelled to do things to which the law does not oblige him, nor forced to abtain from things which the law permits.

Swift. So endles and exorbitant are the deires of men, that they will grap at all, and can form no cheme of perfect happines with les. It is hard to recollect one folly, infirmity, or vice, to which a ingle man is ubjected, and from which a body of commons, collective or repreentative (and he might have added a body of nobles) can be wholly exempt.

Junius. Laws are intended, not to trut to what men will do, but to guard againt what they may do.

Beccaria. Ogni uomo i fa centra di tutte le combinazioni del globo.

Rochefaucault. The ambitious deceive themelves, when they propoe an end to their ambition; for that end, when attained, ecomes a means.

De Lolme. Experience evinces, that the happiet dipoitions are not proof againt the allurements of power, which has no charms but as it leads on to new advances. Authority endures not the very idea of retraint; nor does it ceae to truggle, till it has beaten down every boundary.

Hobbes, Mandeville, Rochefaucault, have drawn till more detetable pictures; and Roueau, in his Inequalities among Mankind, gives a deription of a civilized heart, too black and horrible to be trancribed.

Even our amiable friends, thoe benevolent Chritian philoophers, Dr. Price and Dr. Prietley, acquaint