Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/350

298 in Christendom, at the same time that by their practices they are endeavouring to destroy it at home, are not such mighty patriots, or so much in the true interest of their country, as they would aifect to be thought; but seem to be employed like a man, who pulls down with his right hand, what he has been building with his left.

Thirdly, This makes appear the errour of those, who think it an uncontrollable maxim, that power is always safer lodged in many hands, than in one: for, if these many hands be made up only from one of the three divisions before-mentioned, it is plain from those examples already produced, and easy to be paralleled in other ages and countries, that they are capable of enslaving the nation, and of acting all manner of tyranny and oppression, as it is possible for a single person to be, though we should suppose their number not only to be of four or five hundred, but above three thousand.

Again, It is manifest from what has been said, that in order to preserve the balance in a mixed state, the limits of power deposited with each party ought to be ascertained, and generally known. The defect of this, is the cause that introduces those strugglings in a state about prerogative and liberty, about encroachments of the few upon the rights of the many, and of the many upon the privileges of the few, which ever did, and ever will conclude in a tyranny; first, either of the few, or the many; but at last, infallibly of a single person: for, whichever of the three divisions in a state is upon the scramble for more power than its own, (as one or other of them generally is) unless due care be taken by the other two, upon every new question that arises, they will