assume, on a supposition that he is insensible to the motives which
recommend the practice of virtue.

The rules of despotism are made for the government of corrupted men. They
were indeed followed on some remarkable occasions, even under the Roman
commonwealth; and the bloody axe, to terrify the citizen from his crimes,
and to repel the casual and temporary irruptions of vice, was repeatedly
committed to the arbitrary will of the dictator. They were finally
established on the ruins of the republic itself, when either the people
became too corrupted for freedom, or when the magistrate became too
corrupted to resign his dictatorial power. This species of government comes
naturally in the termination of a continued and growing corruption; but
has, no doubt, in some instances, come too soon, and has sacrificed remains
of virtue, that deserved a better fate, to the jealousy of tyrants, who
were in haste to augment their power. This method of government cannot, in
such cases, fail to introduce that measure of corruption, against whose
external effects it is desired as a remedy. When fear is suggested as the
only motive to duty, every art becomes rapacious or base. And this
medicine, if applied to a healthy body, is sure to create the distemper;
which in other cases it is destined to cure.

This is the manner of government into which the covetous, and the arrogant,
to satiate their unhappy desires, would hurry their fellow creatures: it is
a manner of government to which the timorous and the servile submit at
discretion; and when these characters of the rapacious and the timid divide
mankind, even the virtues of Antoninus or Trajan can do no more than apply,
with candour and with vigour, the whip and the sword; and endeavour, by the
hopes of reward, or the fear of punishment, to find a speedy and a
temporary cure for the crimes, or the imbecilities of men.