It
being as impossible for a governor, if he really means the good of his
people, and the preservation of them and their laws together, not to
make them see and feel it, as it is for the father of a family not
to let his children see he loves and takes care of them.
210. But if all the world shall observe pretences of one kind, and
actions of another, arts used to elude the law, and the trust of
prerogative (which is an arbitrary power in some things left in the
prince's hand to do good, not harm, to the people) employed contrary
to the end for which it was given; if the people shall find the
ministers and subordinate magistrates chosen, suitable to such ends,
and favoured or laid by proportionably as they promote or oppose them;
if they see several experiments made of arbitrary power, and that
religion underhand favoured, though publicly proclaimed against, which
is readiest to introduce it, and the operators in it supported as much
as may be; and when that cannot be done, yet approved still, and liked
the better, and a long train of acting show the counsels all tending
that way, how can a man any more hinder himself from being persuaded
in his own mind which way things are going; or, from casting about how
to save himself, than he could from believing the captain of a ship he
was in was carrying him and the rest of the company to Algiers, when
he found him always steering that course, though cross winds, leaks in
his ship, and want of men and provisions did often force him to turn
his course another way for some time, which he steadily returned to
again as soon as the wind, weather, and other circumstances would
let him?
Chapter XIX
Of the Dissolution of Government
211.
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