apportioning among themselves all power, rank, and honor, unjustly
arrogated privileges and immunities; erected themselves into separate
orders and distinct classes; reduced the people to their control; and,
under the name of aristocracy, the state was tormented by the passions
of the wealthy and the great.

Sacred impostors, in other countries, tending by other means to the
same object, abused the credulity of the ignorant. In the gloom of their
temples, behind the curtain of the altar, they made their gods act and
speak; gave forth oracles, worked miracles, ordered sacrifices, levied
offerings, prescribed endowments; and, under the names of theocracy and
of religion, the state became tormented by the passions of the priests.

Sometimes a nation, weary of its dissensions or of its tyrants, to
lessen the sources of evil, submitted to a single master; but if it
limited his powers, his sole aim was to enlarge them; if it left them
indefinite, he abused the trust confided to him; and, under the name of
monarchy, the state was tormented by the passions of kings and princes.

Then the factions, availing themselves of the general discontent,
flattered the people with the hope of a better master; dealt out gifts
and promises, deposed the despot to take his place; and their contests
for the succession, or its partition, tormented the state with the
disorders and devastations of civil war.

In fine, among these rivals, one more adroit, or more fortunate, gained
the ascendency, and concentrated all power within himself. By a strange
phenomenon, a single individual mastered millions of his equals, against
their will and without their consent; and the art of tyranny sprung also
from cupidity.