XLIII. To conclude: I assert that if by reason of being born in it, we contract any obligation to a particular district or place, that obligation is inferior to, and ought to give place to every other christian or political one whatever. Surely the difference of being born in this or that country is not so material, that this should out-weigh every other consideration; therefore we ought never to prefer our countryman only because he is our countryman, except in those cases, where there is a perfect equality of all the other circumstances. XLIV. In superior rulers, I don’t even with this limitation, admit of any partiality, with respect to countrymen, for the following reasons: first, because without being perfectly divested of this passion, it is hardly possible in one instance or another, to shun the danger of passing from favour to injustice. Secondly, that in whatever manner, favour to our countrymen is limited and restrained, we are apt to fall into an acceptation or preferable choice of persons, which by all those who govern ought to be studiously avoided. Thirdly, superior rulers being truly the fathers of their people, their impartial affection for them should be regarded as a consideration so incomparably superior to all others, that it ought to stifle and suffocate every kind of motive or inclination to preference, except that, which is derived from superior merit. It would be ridiculous in a father to love one child better than another, only because this was born in his own town or city, and the mother was delivered of the other in a different place, in consequence of her being from home on a journey. Therefore all those who govern, ought ever to retain in their hearts and memories, the maxim of the famous queen of Carthage, who being informed that the Trojans, in consequence of her marrying Eneas, entertained hopes of receiving superior indulgences to the Tyrians from her, declared her perfect indifference of affection for them all as a queen in the following words: _Tros, Tyriusque mihi nullo discrimine agetur._ SECT. IX.