“Your councils, except the Dictator only, are proper and native springs and sources, you see, which (hanging a few sticks and straws, that, as less considerable, would otherwise be more troublesome, upon the banks of their peculiar channels) derive the full stream of business into the Senate, so pure, and so far from the possibility of being troubled or stained (as will Undeniably appear by the course contained in the ensuing order) with any kind of private interest or partiality, that it shall never be possible for any assembly hearkening to the advice or information of this or that worthy member (either instructed upon his pillow, or while he was making himself ready, or by the petition or ticket which he received at the door) to have half the security in his faith, or advantage by his wisdom; such a Senate or council being, through the uncertainty of the winds, like a wave of the sea. Nor shall it otherwise mend the matter by flowing up into dry ditches, or referring businesses to be better examined by committees, than to go further about with it to less purpose; if it does not ebb back again with the more mud in it. For in a case referred to an occasional committee, of which any member that is desirous may get himself named, and to which nobody will come but either for the sake of his friend or his own interest; it fares little better as to the information of the Senate, than if it had been referred to the parties. Wherefore the Athenians being distributed into four tribes, out of which by equal numbers they annually chose 400 men, called the Senate of the Bean, because the ballot at their election was performed by the use of beans, divided them by fifties into eight parts. And every fifty in their turn, for one-eighth part of the year, was a council apart called the Prytans.