How can the objector persist in disbelieving that cruelty is the natural effect of arbitrary power, when the very words of every day, rise up on his lips in testimony against him--words which once signified the _mere possession_ of arbitrary power, but have lost their meaning, and now signify merely its cruel _exercise_; because such a use of it has been proved by the experience of the world, to be inseparable from its _possession_--words now frigid with horror, and never used even by the objector without feeling a cold chill run over him. Arbitrary power is to the mind what alcohol is to the body; it intoxicates. Man loves power. It is perhaps the strongest human passion; and the more absolute the power, the stronger the desire for it; and the more it is desired, the more its exercise is enjoyed: this enjoyment is to human nature a fearful temptation,--generally an overmatch for it. Hence it is true, with hardly an exception, that arbitrary power is abused in proportion as it is _desired_. The fact that a person intensely desires power over others, _without restraint_, shows the absolute necessity of restraint. What woman would marry a man who made it a condition that he should have the power to divorce her whenever he pleased? Oh! he might never wish to exercise it, but the _power_ he would have! No woman, not stark mad, would trust her happiness in such hands. Would a father apprentice his son to a master, who insisted that his power over the lad should be _absolute_? The master might perhaps, never wish to commit a battery upon the boy, but if he should, he insists upon having full swing! He who would leave his son in the, clutches of such a wretch, would be bled and blistered for a lunatic as soon as his friends could get their hands upon him. The possession of power, even when greatly restrained, is such a fiery stimulant, that its lodgement in human hands is always perilous. Give men the handling of immense sums of money, and all the eyes of Argus and the hands of Briarcus can hardly prevent embezzlement.