Page:Thoughts on civil liberty, on licentiousness and faction.djvu/39

 Vice, civil Liberty must ever be imperfect: A certain Degree of Licentiousness (that is, of private Will, opposing the Public) will always mix itself, and in some Degree contaminate the Purity of every Commonwealth.

Yet, while virtuous Manners and Principles clearly predominate in their Effects, a State may still be justly called free.

But in Proportion as these Manners and Principles decay, and their Contraries rise into Power and Action, public Freedom must necessarily decline. For in that Case, the Passions and Powers of the human Mind are all set in Conspiracy against the Dictates of public Law. Hence unbridled Passions will have their Course; every Man's Heart and Hand will be set against his Brethren; and the general Cement of Society, which bound all together, being thus dissolved; even without any external Violence offered, the Commonwealth through its internal Corruption must fall in Pieces.