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/542

 : By what means the happiness of the people may be most effectually promoted.

the endeavours of their governours.
 * How the people are to assist and further

to promote the happiness of the people.
 * How much it is the duty of those in authority

If it be true in general that no man is born merely for his own sake, to consult his own advantage or pleasure, unconnected with the good of others; it is yet more evidently true of those who are exalted into high rank, dignified with honours, and vested with authority. Their superiority is not to be considered as a sanction for laziness, or a privilege for vice. They are not to conceive, that their passions are to be allowed a wider range, or their appetites set more free from subjection to reason, than those of others. They are not to consult their own glory, at the expense of the lives of others; or to gratify their avarice, by plundering those whom diligence and labour have entitled to affluence. They are not to conceive that power gives a right to oppress, and to punish those who murmur at oppression. They are to look upon their power, and their greatness, as instruments placed in their hands, to be employed for the publick advantage. They are to remember they are placed upon an eminence, that their examples may be more conspicuous, and that, therefore, they must take care, lest they teach those vices which they ought to suppress. They must reflect, that it is their duty to secure property from the attempts of rapine and robbery, and that those whom they protect will be very little benefited by their care, if what they rescue from others they take away themselves.

It appears from those struggles for dominion, which have filled the world with war, bloodshed, and desolation, and have torn in pieces almost all the states and kingdoms of the earth, and from those daily contests for subordinate authority, which disturb the quiet of smaller societies, that there is somewhat in power more pleasing than in any other enjoyment; and, consequently, to be