Nothing is more difficult for a man than to control his passions, or more difficult for a legislator than to control the passions of the people of whom he forms a part, to say nothing of his own. "Aristotle," says Montesquieu, "wanted to gratify, first, his jealousy of Plato and then his love for Alexander. Plato was horrified at the tyranny of the Athenians. Machiavel was full of his idol, the Duke of Valentinois. Thomas More, who was wont to speak of what he had read rather than of what he had thought, wanted to govern every state upon the model of a Greek city. Harrington could think of nothing but an English republic, while hosts of writers thought confusion must reign wherever there was no monarchy. Laws are always in contact with the passions and prejudices of the legislator, whether these are his alone, or common to him and to his people. Sometimes they pass through and merely take colour from the prejudice of the day, sometimes they succumb to it and make it part of themselves." This is just the opposite of what should be. The legislator should be to the people what conscience is to the heart of the individual. He should understand its besetting passions in all their bearings and not be deceived by subterfuge or hypocrisy. Sometimes he must attack them boldly, sometimes play off one against another, or favour one at the expense of another which is less influential, now yielding ground, now recovering it, but he must ever be skilful and impartial and never be intimidated, diverted from his purpose, nor deceived by his natural enemies. He should be, so to speak, more conscientious than conscience itself, because he must never forget that he has to obey to-morrow the law which he makes to-day--_semel jussit semper paruit_. He must, therefore, be absolutely disinterested, a thing most difficult for him, but for which conscience requires no effort. Not only must he be without passion, but he must have trained himself to be impervious to passion, which is much more. We must conceive of him as a conscience that has risen from the ashes of passion. As Rousseau said, "to discover the perfect ruler for human society we must find a superior intelligence who has seen all the passions of man but has experienced none of them, who has had no sort of relations with our nature but who knows it to the core, whose happiness is not dependent on us, but who wishes to promote our welfare, in a word, one who aims at a distant renown, in a remote future, and who is content to labour in one age and to enjoy in another."