than to punish.

In choosing persons for all employments, they have more regard to good
morals than to great abilities; for, since government is necessary to
mankind, they believe that the common size of human understanding is
fitted to some station or other, and that Providence never intended to
make the management of public affairs a mystery, to be comprehended only
by a few persons of sublime genius, of which there seldom are three born
in an age; but they suppose truth, justice, temperance, and the like, to
be in every man's power, the practice of which virtues, assisted by
experience, and a good intention, would qualify any man for the service
of his country, except where a course of study is required. But they
thought the want of moral virtues was so far from being supplied by
superior endowments of the mind, that employments could never be put
into such dangerous hands as those of persons so qualified; and at
least, that the mistakes committed by ignorance, in a virtuous
disposition, would never be of such fatal consequences to the public
weal as the practices of a man whose inclinations led him to be corrupt,
and who had great abilities to manage, to multiply, and defend his
corruptions.

In like manner, the disbelief of a Divine Providence renders a man
incapable of holding any public station; for, since kings avow
themselves to be the deputies of Providence, the Lilliputians think
nothing can be more absurd than for a prince to employ such men as
disown the authority under which he acts.

In relating these and the following laws, I would only be understood to
mean the original institutions, and not the most scandalous corruptions
into which these people are fallen, by the degenerate nature of man.