Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/174

136 " as twenty, and immediately make a commonwealth. Twenty men, if they be not all ideots, perhaps if they be, can never come o together, but there will be uch a difference in them, that about a third will be wier, or at leat les foolih, than all the ret. Thee, upon acquaintance, though it be but mall, will be dicovered, and (as tags that have the larget heads) lead the herd: for while the ix, dicouring and arguing one with another, hew the eminence of their parts, the fourteen dicover things that they never thought on, or are cleared in divere truths that formerly perplexed them: wherefore, in matters of common concernment, difficulty, or danger, they hang upon their lips, as children upon their fathers; and the influence thus acquired by the ix, the eminence of whoe parts are found to be a tay and comfort to the fourteen, is the authority of the fathers—auctoritas patrum. Wherefore this can be no other than a natural aritocracy, diffued by God throughout the whole body of mankind, to this end and purpoe; and therefore uch as the people have not only a natural, but a poitive obligation to make ue of as their guides; as where the people of Irael are commanded to take wie men, and undertanding, and known among their tribes, to be made rulers over them. The ix then approved of, as in the preent cae, are the enate; not by hereditary right, or in regard to the greatnes of their etates only, which would tend to uch power as would force or draw the people; but by election for their excellent parts, which tends to the advancement of the influence of their virtue or authority; that leads the people. Wherefore the office of the enate is not to be commanders, but "ellors