XI. There are these examples, but you will find very few others, of perverse politicians, who have been always successful. But what shall we infer from such examples? Shall we esteem those fine politicians who have pursued the same rout? no, we should rather call them absurd and insensible ones. It shews great want of judgment, to found hopes and expectations upon one or two singular events, in preference to what commonly happens in the ordinary course of things. Because some one has found a vein of gold by digging the ground, would it not be madness in me to occupy myself, and spend all my time in opening wells through the bowels of the earth? for if two or three have found the philosopher’s stone, (though I much doubt if any one ever did) the number of those are infinite, who by searching after it, have wasted their substance, and lost their lives. In these very rare chances, on which imprudent ambitious people found their expectations, there likewise intervene other very rare accidents, and that these should all concur to favour him, is more than any prudent man can expect. Those few successful people were also assisted with very uncommon natural talents, by dint of which, if they had directed their steps through the paths of virtue, they would have gone on smoothly, and would have arrived at happiness with much greater ease and satisfaction to themselves, than they did in the vicious course they pursued; and this corresponds with the observation Titus Livius makes on the elder Cato; _In illo viro tantum robur corporis, & animi fuit, ut quocumque loco natus esset, fortunam sibi facturus videretur._ SECT. IV.