Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/393

Rh, arises from the influence of private persons upon great numbers, styled in common phrase, leading men and parties. And therefore, when we sometimes meet a few words put together, which is called the vote or resolution of an assembly, and which we cannot possibly reconcile to prudence, or publick good, it is most charitable to conjecture, that such a vote has been conceived and born, and bred in a private brain; afterward raised and supported by an obsequious party; and then with usual methods confirmed by an artificial majority. For, let us suppose five hundred men, mixed in point of sense and honesty, as usually assemblies are; and let us suppose these men proposing, debating, resolving, voting, according to the mere natural motions of their own little or much reason and understanding; I do allow, that abundance of indigested and abortive, many pernicious and foolish overtures would arise, and float a few minutes; but then they would die and disappear. Because, this must be said in behalf of humankind, that common sense and plain reason, while men are disengaged from acquired opinions, will ever have some general influence upon their minds; whereas the species of folly and vice are infinite, and so different in every individual, that they could never procure a majority, if other corruptions did not enter to pervert men's understandings, and misguide their wills.

To describe how parties are bred in an assembly, would be a work too difficult at present, and perhaps not altogether safe. Periculosæ plenum opus aleæ. Whether those, who are leaders, usually arrive at that station more by a sort of instinct or secret composition of their nature, or influence of the Rh