Page:Thoughts on civil liberty, on licentiousness and faction.djvu/150

 Name, we hear of nothing but "such imperfect and vicious Creatures as Men, tyrannizing over others as imperfect and vicious as themselves: " We have nothing presented to us, but "Pride, Avarice, and Cruelty on one Side; Envy, Ignorance, and Obstinacy on the other; Injustice and Self-Interest on both. " In a Word, Mankind are represented as an abandoned and incurable Race, utterly void of all good Qualities; and such as "must be always bribed or beat into Obedience. "

Here, then, this Maxim of the absolute and unconditional Necessity of Political Corruption appears in all its Nakedness and Deformity: For it is founded on "the supposed incurable Wickedness of Man:" An Error too glaring to need a Confutation; and which there is still the less Occasion to confute, because this Author himself admits the contrary.