II. You need only examine history, both sacred and profane, to be informed, that the policy of the antients was not better than that of the moderns; and I for my part, am inclined to think it was worse; for they scarce knew any other road to the temple of Fortune, than that which was either laid open by violence, or fabricated by deceit. Good faith and friendship, lasted as long as people found it their interest to preserve them. Religion and justice, served as footstools to the idol of convenience. Ovid and Aulus Gellius relate, that when Tarquin resolved to build the great temple of the capitol to the honour of Jupiter, he demolished, in order to make room for it, the temples of many inferior Gods, who were all obliged to give way to Jupiter; but the God Terminus, or the patron of interest and convenience, refused to cede or make way for Jupiter himself, so he maintained his ground, and his statue kept its place in the capitol, jointly with that of Jupiter: _Terminus, ut veteres memorant, conventus in urbe_ _Restitit, & magno cum Jove templa tenet._ III. This fiction discovers to us the following truth, that the object of men’s pursuits is their own convenience, which they are ever strenuous and anxious to promote; and this is the deity, who never cared to cede or give place to Jupiter himself, for from the most antient times, _ut veteres memorant_, interest has ever disputed the precedence with religion. IV. Polybius lived a great while ago, and in his time they had not only one, but many Machiavels, who taught, that the management of public affairs was impracticable, without the aid of deceit and treachery: _Non desunt, qui in tam crebro usu doli mali necessarium eum esse dicant ad publicarum rerum administrationem_ (Lib. 13. Histor.) Although you may see in Lucan, the fundamental doctrine of Machiavel more strongly expressed than it is in the above sentence, by the abandoned Phocion, in the speech he made to Ptolemy King of Egypt, to prevail with him, in violation of gratitude, and in breach of his plighted word, to take away the life of the great Pompey; _Sidera terra_ _Ut distant, & flamma mari sic utile recto._ V. This is precisely saying, that virtue is always in a state of warfare with private utility, and that to negotiate convenience, it is necessary to abandon justice. A little after he adds, that he who resolves to be merciful and just, should banish himself from courts, for there, vice only is patronized: _Exeat aula_ _Qui vult esse pius._