63.A more suitable place to look for corruption in,if we may take his own word for it,there cannot be.`Every man's reason,'he assures us [1Comm.p.41.]`is corrupt';and not only that,but `his understanding full of ignorance and error'.With regard to others,it were as well not to be too positive:hut with regard to a man's self,what he tells us from experience,it would be ill manners to dispute with him.
64.1Comm.p.48.
65.See HAWKESWORTH'S Voyages.
The condition of these imaginary sovereigns puts one in mind of the story of,I forget what King's Fool.The Fool had stuck himself up one day,with great gravity,in the King's throne with a stick,by way of a sceptre,in one hand,and a ball in the other:being asked what he was doing,he answered,`reigning'.Much the same sort of reign,I take it,would be that of the members of our Author's Democracy.
66.V.supra,ch.I.par.VI.
67.What is curious is,that the same persons who tell you (having read as much)that Democracy is a form of Government under which the supreme power is vested in all the members of a state,will also tell you (having also read as much)that the Athenian Commonwealth was a Democracy.Now the truth is,that in the Athenian Commonwealth,upon the most moderate computation,it is not one tenth part of the inhabitants of the Athenian state that ever at a time partook of the supreme power:
women,children,and slaves,being taken into the account.[See,among Mr HUME'S Essays,that on the populousness of ancient nations.]Civil Lawyers,indeed,will tell you,with a grave face,that a slave is nobody;as Common Lawyers will,that a bastard is the son of nobody.But,to an unprejudiced eye,the condition of a state is the condition of all the individuals,without distinction,that compose it.
68.By fiscal power I mean that which in this country is exercised by what is called the Board of Treasury.
69.By dispensatorial power I mean as well that which is exercised by the Board of Treasury,as those others which are executed in the several offices styled with us the War Office,Admiralty Board,Navy Board,Board of Ordnance,and Board of Works:excepting from the business of all these offices,the power of appointing persons to fill other subordinate offices:a power which seems to be of a distinct nature from that of making disposition of any article of public property.