were willing to sanction great interference with preëxisting rights for the purpose of bringing it back nearer to their ideal standard: and the real security for the maintenance of these rights lay in the conservative feelings of the citizens generally, much more than in the opinions which superior minds imbibe from the philosophers. [193] Boeckh (Public Econ. of Athens, b. i, ch. 22, p. 128) thinks differently,—in my judgment, contrary to the evidence: the passages to which he refers, especially that of Theophrastus, are not sufficient to sustain his opinion, and there are other passages which go far to contradict it. [194] Lysias cont. Theomnêst. A. c. 5, p. 360. [195] Cicero, De Officiis, i, 42. [196] Plato, Legg. iii, p. 684. ὡς ἐπιχειροῦντι δὴ νομοθέτῃ κινεῖν τῶν τοιούτων τι πᾶς ἀπαντᾷ, λέγων, μὴ κινεῖν τὰ ἀκίνητα, καὶ ἐπαρᾶται γῆς τε ἀναδασμοὺς εἰσηγούμενον καὶ χρεῶν ἀποκοπὰς, ὥστ᾽ εἰς ἀπορίαν καθίστασθαι πάντα ἄνδρα, etc.: compare also v, pp. 736-737, where similar feelings are intimated not less emphatically. Cicero lays down very good principles about the mischief of destroying faith in contracts; but his admonitions to this effect seem to be accompanied with an impracticable condition: the lawgiver is to take care that debts shall not be contracted to an extent hurtful to the state: “Quamobrem ne sit æs alienum, quod reipublicæ noceat, providendum est (quod _multis rationibus_ caveri potest): non, si fuerit, ut locupletes suum perdant, debitores lucrentur alienum,” etc. What the _multæ rationes_ were, which Cicero had in his mind, I do not know: compare his opinion about _fœneratores_, Offic. i, 42 ii, 25. [197] See Plutarch’s Life of Agis, especially ch. 13, about the bonfire in which the κλάρια, or mortgage-deeds, of the creditors were all burnt, in the agora of Sparta: compare also the comparison of Agis with Gracchus, c. 2.