CHAPTER X.: ill effects of a corrupt government.

1. In a corrupt government there is neither union nor friendship amongst the citizens, unless it be amongst those who are accomplices in some villany.

2. As in corrupt governments all religion and fear of God are extinct, so an oath and a given pledge have lost all value, except when they can be employed for the purpose of gaining some advantage. Men avail themselves of them, not for the purpose of observing them, but because they serve them as a means for deceiving the more easily; and the more easily and securely the fraud succeeds, the more praise and glory are derived from it. The bad men, therefore, are praised as clever, and the honest men are blamed as imbeciles.

3. In a corrupt government the young men are idle and the old men lascivious, and every age and sex given over to abominable practices; which cannot be remedied even by good laws, as these have become corrupt by common practice.

4. From this corruption arise that rapacity which is noticeable in every citizen, and that thirst, not for real glory, but for those discreditable honors which are the sources of hatred, enmity, disagreements, and plots; these are a cause of affliction to the good, and of triumph to the wicked. For the good, confiding in their innocence, do not, like the wicked, seek some one who will defend and honor them by extraordinary means, so that undefended and unhonored the good are ruined.

5. From this example of corruption arises the love of parties and their power; to these the wicked attach themselves from rapacity and ambition, and the good from necessity. And what is most mischievous is to see how the originators of these parties cover their aims and intentions with some pious name or title.

6. It results from this corruption that the ordinances and laws are not made for the public good, but for personal and individual advantage.

7. This corruption causes wars, peace, and alliances to be concluded, not for the common glory, but for the satisfaction of the few.

8. In a city tainted by such disorders, the laws, the statutes, and the civil ordinances are not made for the public good, but have ever been and ever will be established to satisfy the ambition of the dominant party.