Page:The Works of Samuel Johnson ... A journey to the Hebrides. The vision of Theodore, the hermit of Teneriffe. The fountains. Prayers and meditations. Sermons.v. 10-11. Parliamentary debates.pdf/536

 When that which would have been granted to request, or yielded to remonstrance, is wantonly seized by sudden violence, it is apparent that violence is chosen for its own sake, and that the claimant pleases himself, not with the possession, but the power by which it was gained, and the mortification of him, to whom his superiority has not allowed the happiness of choice, but has at once taken from him the honour of keeping, and the credit of resigning.

There is another token that strife is produced by the predominance of some vitious passion, when it is carried on against natural or legal superiority. This token, though, perhaps, it is not very frequently fallacious, is not equally certain with the former; because that superiority which nature gives, or institutions establish, too frequently incites insolence, or oppression; such insolence as may justly be restrained, and such oppression as may be lawfully resisted. Many modes of tyranny have been practised in the world, of which it is more natural to ask, with wonder, why they were submitted to so long, than why they were at last opposed and quelled. But if history and experience inform us that power and greatness grow wanton and licentious, that wealth and prosperity elate the mind, and enslave the understanding to desire, and when men once find that no one has power to control them, they are seldom very attentive to justice, or very careful to control themselves; history and experience will likewise show us, that the contrary condition has its temptations and its crimes, that he, who considers himself as subject to another, and liable to suffer by caprice or wickedness, often anticipates the evils of his state, imagines himself to feel what he only fears, and imputes every failure of negligence, or start of passion, to studied tyranny and settled malevolence. To be inferiour is necessarily unpleasing; to be placed in a state of inferiority to those who have no eminent abilities, or transcendent merit, (which must happen in all political constitutions,) increases the uneasiness; and every man finds in himself a strong inclination to