as it is a party in the divisions of mankind; and our zeal for its
interest, is a predilection in behalf of the side we maintain.

In the promiscuous concourse of men, it is sufficient that we have an
opportunity of selecting our company. We turn away from those who do not
engage us, and we fix our resort where the society is more to our mind. We
are fond of distinctions; we place ourselves in opposition, and quarrel
under the denominations of faction and party, without any material subject
of controversy. Aversion, like affection, is fostered by a continued
direction to its particular object. Separation and estrangement, as well as
opposition, widen a breach which did not owe its beginnings to any offence.
And it would seem, that till we have reduced mankind to the state of a
family, or found some external consideration to maintain their connection
in greater numbers, they will be for ever separated into bands, and form a
plurality of nations.

The sense of a common danger, and the assaults of an enemy, have been
frequently useful to nations, by uniting their members more firmly
together, and by preventing the secessions and actual separations in which
their civil discord might otherwise terminate. And this motive to union
which is offered from abroad, may be necessary, not only in the case of
large and extensive nations, where coalitions are weakened by distance, and
the distinction of provincial names; but even in the narrow society of the
smallest states. Rome itself was founded by a small party which took its
flight from Alba; her citizens were often in danger of separating; and if
the villages and cantons of the Volsci had been further removed from the
scene of their dissentions, the Mons Sacer might have received a new colony
before the mother country was ripe for such a discharge. She continued long
to feel the quarrels of her nobles and her people; and kept open the gates
of Janus, to remind those parties of the duties they owed to their country.