Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/208

200 all, as soon as we have read these words! how thoroughly are we instructed in the whole nature of government! what mighty truths are here discovered; and how clearly conveyed to our understanding! and therefore, let us melt this refined jargon into the old style for the improvement of such who are not enough conversant in the new.

If the author were one who used to talk like one of us, he would have spoke in this manner: "I think it necessary to give a full and perfect definition of government, such as will show the nature and all the properties of it; and my definition is thus: One man will never cure another of stealing horses, merely by minding him of the pains he has taken, the cold he has got, and the shoe-leather he has lost, in stealing that horse; nay, to warn him, that the horse may kick or fling him, or cost him more than he is worth in hay and oats, can be no more than advice. For, the gallows is not the natural effect of robbing on the highway, as heat is of fire; and therefore, if you will govern a man, you must find out some other way of punishment than what he will inflict upon himself."

Or, if this will not do, let us try it in another case (which I instanced before) and in his own terms. Suppose he had thought it necessary (and I think it was as much so as the other) to show us what is contained in the idea of a mouse-trap, he must have proceeded in these terms: "It would be in vain for an intelligent being to set rules for hindering a mouse from eating his cheese, unless he can inflict upon that mouse some punishment, which is not the natural consequence of eating the cheese. For, to tell her, it may lie heavy on her stomach, that she will