[801]. Plat. Gorg. t. iii. p. 27. De Rep. t. vi. p. 358. sqq. Bekk.
[802]. See on this part of the subject Destutt de Tracy. Com. sur l’Esprit des Loix, p. 25. sqq.
[803]. In an ill-constituted state, observes Muretus, a good man cannot be a good citizen, for he will desire to alter the government, which being bad he cannot respect.—In Aristot. Eth. p. 398.
[804]. The advantages of which were so much coveted by foreigners, that they sent their children in crowds to be educated at Athens.—Æsch. Epist. Orat. Att. xii. 214.
[805]. A commonwealth, says Plato, once well constituted will proceed like an ever rolling circle. For by persevering in good training and instruction, the minds and disposition of the people will be rendered good, and these again in their turn will improve the system of training and instruction, and even the race of man itself, as the breed of other animals, is rendered more excellent by care.—De Rep. t. vi. p. 173. Cf. Isocrates, Areop. § 14. seq.
[806]. Repub. i. t. vi. p. 42. seq. Bekk.
[807]. Vid. Athen. ii. 18.—That geography entered but very little into their studies may be inferred from Thucydides, vii. 1.
[808]. Vid. Herod. i. 29. And Cf. Schœll. Hist. de la Lit. Grecq. ii. 134. Isoc. de Perm. § 26. Muret. in Arist. Ethic. p. 477. Menag. ad Diog. Laert. p. 5. a. b. &c.
[809]. Hobbes, the great representative of this class of men in modern times, living under the despotism of the Stuarts, sought to turn the tables upon the philosophers, and accused them of corrupting the minds of youth. “As to rebellion, in particular against monarchy, one of the most frequent causes of it is the reading of the books of policy and histories of the ancient Greeks and Romans; from which young men, and all others that are unprovided of the antidote of solid reason, receiving a strong and delightful impression of the great exploits of war, achieved by the conductors of their armies, receive withal a pleasing idea of all they have done besides; and imagine their great prosperity not to have proceeded from the emulation of particular men, but from the virtue of their popular form of government.”—Leviathan, pt. ii. c. 29. vol. iii. p. 315.—Edition of Sir William Molesworth.
[810]. Poll. iv. 17.