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[151]
To begin then a good way backward, I would advance this, in the
first place, that those who have been admirers of good order, and of living
under common laws, and who began to introduce them, may well have this
testimony that they are better than other men, both for moderation and
such virtue as is agreeable to nature. Indeed their endeavor was to have
every thing they ordained believed to be very ancient, that they might
not be thought to imitate others, but might appear to have delivered a
regular way of living to others after them. Since then this is the case,
the excellency of a legislator is seen in providing for the people's living
after the best manner, and in prevailing with those that are to use the
laws he ordains for them, to have a good opinion of them, and in obliging
the multitude to persevere in them, and to make no changes in them, neither
in prosperity nor adversity. Now I venture to say, that our legislator
is the most ancient of all the legislators whom we have ally where heard
of; for as for the Lycurguses, and Solons, and Zaleucus Locrensis, and
all those legislators who are so admired by the Greeks, they seem to be
of yesterday, if compared with our legislator, insomuch as the very name
of a law was not so much as known in old times among the Grecians. Homer
is a witness to the truth of this observation, who never uses that term
in all his poems; for indeed there was then no such thing among them, but
the multitude was governed by wise maxims, and by the injunctions of their
king. It was also a long time that they continued in the use of these unwritten
customs, although they were always changing them upon several occasions.
But for our legislator, who was of so much greater antiquity than the rest,
(as even those that speak against us upon all occasions do always confess,)
he exhibited himself to the people as their best governor and counselor,
and included in his legislation the entire conduct of their lives, and
prevailed with them to receive it, and brought it so to pass, that those
that were made acquainted with his laws did most carefully observe them.
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