It is remarkable that though Diodorus Siculus makes the inhabitants of Egypt, when conquered by the Romans, amount only to three millions, yet Josephus (De bello Jud., lib. 2, cap. 16) says that its inhabitants, excluding those of Alexandria, were seven millions and a half in the reign of Nero, and he expressly says that he drew this account from the books of the Roman publicans who levied the poll-tax. Strabo (lib. 17) praises the superior police of the Romans with regard to the finances of Egypt above that of its former monarchs, and no part of administration is more essential to the happiness of a people; yet we read in Athenæus (lib. 1, cap. 25), who flourished during the reign of the Antonines, that the town Mareia, near Alexandria, which was formerly a large city, had dwindled into a village. This is not, properly speaking, a contradiction. Suidas (August) says that the Emperor Augustus, having numbered the whole Roman Empire, found it contained only 4,101,017 men (ἀνδρες). There is here surely some great mistake, either in the author or transcriber; but this authority, feeble as it is, may be sufficient to counterbalance the exaggerated accounts of Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus with regard to more early times.
[100] Lib. 2, cap. 62. It may perhaps be imagined that Polybius, being dependent on Rome, would naturally extol the Roman dominion; but, in the first place, Polybius, though one sees sometimes instances of his caution, discovers no symptoms of flattery. Secondly, this opinion is only delivered in a single stroke, by the by, while he is intent upon another subject, and it is allowed, if there be any suspicion of an author’s insincerity, that these oblique propositions discover his real opinion better than his more formal and direct assertions.
[101] I must confess that that discourse of Plutarch concerning the silence of the oracles is in general of so odd a texture, and so unlike his other productions, that one is at a loss what judgment to form of it. It is written in dialogue, which is a method of composition that Plutarch commonly little affects. The personages he introduces advance very wild, absurd, and contradictory opinions, more like visionary systems or ravings of Plato than the solid sense of Plutarch. There runs also through the whole an air of superstition and credulity which resembles very little the spirit that appears in other philosophical compositions of that author; for it is remarkable that though Plutarch be an historian as superstitious as Herodotus or Livy, yet there is scarcely in all antiquity a philosopher less superstitious, excepting Cicero and Lucian. I must therefore confess that a passage of Plutarch, cited from this discourse, has much less authority with me than if it had been found in most of his other compositions.
There is only one other discourse of Plutarch liable to like objections—viz., that concerning those whose punishment is delayed by the Deity. It is also written in dialogue, contains like superstitious, wild visions, and seems to have been chiefly composed in rivalship to Plato, particularly his last book, De Republica.
And here I cannot but observe that Monsieur Fontenelle, a writer eminent for candour, seems to have departed a little from his usual character when he endeavours to throw a ridicule upon Plutarch on account of passages to be met with in this dialogue concerning oracles. The absurdities here put into the mouths of the several personages are not to be ascribed to Plutarch. He makes them refute each other, and in general he seems to intend the ridiculing of those very opinions which Fontenelle would ridicule him for maintaining. (See Histoires des Oracles.)
[102] He was contemporary with Cæsar and Augustus.
OF THE ORIGINAL CONTRACT.
As no party, in the present age, can support itself without a philosophical or speculative system of principles annexed to its political or practical one, we accordingly find that each of the parties into which this nation is divided has reared up a fabric of the former kind, in order to protect and cover that scheme of actions which it pursues. The people being commonly very rude builders, especially in this speculative way, and more especially still when actuated by party zeal, it is natural to imagine that their workmanship must be a little unshapely, and discover evident marks of that violence and hurry in which it was raised. The one party, by tracing up the origin of government to the Deity, endeavour to render government so sacred and {p175} inviolate that it must be little less than sacrilege, however disorderly it may become, to touch or invade it in the smallest article. The other party, by founding government altogether on the consent of the people, suppose that there is a kind of original contract by which the subjects have reserved the power of resisting their sovereign whenever they find themselves aggrieved by that authority with which they have, for certain purposes, voluntarily entrusted him. These are the speculative principles of the two parties, and these too are the practical consequences deduced from them.
I shall venture to affirm that both these systems of speculative principles are just, though not in the sense intended by the parties; and that both the schemes of practical consequences are prudent, though not in the extremes to which each party, in opposition to the other, has commonly endeavoured to carry them.
That the Deity is the ultimate author of all government will never be denied by any who admits a general providence, and allows that all events in the universe are conducted by a uniform plan and directed to wise purposes. As it is impossible for the human race to subsist, at least in any comfortable or secure state, without the protection of government, government must certainly have been intended by that beneficent Being, who means the good of all His creatures; and as it has universally, in fact, taken place in all countries and all ages, we may conclude, with still greater certainty, that it was intended by that omniscient Being, who can never be deceived by any event or operation. But since he gave rise to it, not by any particular or miraculous interposition but by his concealed and universal efficacy, a sovereign cannot, properly speaking, be called his vicegerent in any other sense than every power or force being derived from him may be said to act by his commission. Whatever actually happens is comprehended in the general plan or intention of providence; nor has the greatest and most lawful prince any more reason, upon that account, to plead a peculiar sacredness or inviolable authority, than {p176} an inferior magistrate, or even a usurper, or even a robber and a pirate. The same divine superintendent who, for wise purposes, invested an Elizabeth or a Henry[103] with authority, did also, for purposes no doubt equally wise, though unknown, bestow power on a Borgia or an Angria. The same causes which gave rise to the sovereign power in every state, established likewise every petty jurisdiction in it, and every limited authority. A constable therefore, no less than a king, acts by a divine commission, and possesses an indefeasible right.