view would be a reasonable one were we to disregard the object which
led Romulus to put those men to death. But we must take it as a rule
to which there are very few if any exceptions, that no commonwealth or
kingdom ever has salutary institutions given it from the first or has
its institutions recast in an entirely new mould, unless by a single
person. On the contrary, it must be from one man that it receives its
institutions at first, and upon one man that all similar reconstruction
must depend. For this reason the wise founder of a commonwealth who
seeks to benefit not himself only, or the line of his descendants,
but his State and country, must endeavour to acquire an absolute and
undivided authority. And none who is wise will ever blame any action,
however extraordinary and irregular, which serves to lay the foundation
of a kingdom or to establish a republic. For although the act condemn
the doer, the end may justify him; and when, as in the case of Romulus,
the end is good, it will always excuse the means; since it is he who
does violence with intent to injure, not he who does it with the design
to secure tranquility, who merits blame. Such a person ought however
to be so prudent and moderate as to avoid transmitting the absolute
authority he acquires, as an inheritance to another; for as men are,
by nature, more prone to evil than to good, a successor may turn to
ambitious ends the power which his predecessor has used to promote
worthy ends. Moreover, though it be one man that must give a State its
institutions, once given they are not so likely to last long resting for
support on the shoulders of one man only, as when entrusted to the care
of many, and when it is the business of many to maintain them. For
though the multitude be unfit to set a State in order, since they
cannot, by reason of the divisions which prevail among them, agree
wherein the true well-being of the State lies, yet when they have once
been taught the truth, they never will consent to abandon it. And that
Romulus, though he put his brother to death, is yet of those who are to