Author
Place of Publication
Paris and London
Metaphor
"Men are qualified for civil liberty, in exact proportion to their
disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion
as their love of justice is above their rapacity; in proportion as their
soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and
presumption; in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the
counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves."
Metaphor in Context
Until you make out practically that great work, a combination of
opposing forces, "a work of labour long, and endless praise," the utmost
caution ought to have been used in the reduction of the royal power,
which alone was capable of holding together the comparatively
heterogeneous mass of your states. But, at this day, all these
considerations are unseasonable. To what end should we discuss the
limitations of royal power? Your king is in prison. Why speculate on the
measure and standard of liberty? I doubt much, very much, indeed,
whether France is at all ripe for liberty on any standard. Men are
qualified for civil liberty, in exact proportion to their disposition to
put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion as their love
of justice is above their rapacity; in proportion as their soundness and
sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption; in
proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the
wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society
cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed
somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be
without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men
of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.
(pp. 68-9)
(pp. 68-9)
Link:
http://metaphors.iath.virginia.edu/metaphors/20164
