better? There may be a question of aesthetics, indeed, with which Cicero does not meddle. In the third book he descends to practical and at the same time political questions. There had been no matter contested so vehemently among Romans as that of the establishment and maintenance of the Tribunate. Cicero defends its utility, giving, with considerable wit, the task of attacking it to his brother Quintus. Quintus, indeed, is very violent in his onslaught. What can be more "pestiferous," or more prone to sedition? Then Cicero puts him down. "O Quintus," he says, "you see clearly the vices of the Tribunate! but can there be anything more unjust than, in discussing a matter, to remember all its evils and to forget all its merits? You might say the same of the Consuls; for the very possession of power is an evil in itself. But without that evil you cannot have the good which the institution contains. The power of the Tribunes is too great, you say. Who denies it? But the violence of the people, always cruel and immodest, is less so under their own leader than if no leader had been given them. The leader will measure his danger; but the people itself know no such measurement."[311] He afterward takes up the question of the ballot, and is against it on principle. "Let the people vote as they will," he says, "but let their votes be known to their betters."[312] It is, alas, useless now to discuss the matter here in England! We have been so impetuous in our wish to avoid the evil of bribery--which was quickly going--that we have rushed into that of dissimulation, which can only be made to go by revolutionary changes. When men vote by tens of thousands the ballot will be safe, but no man will then care for the ballot. It is, however, strange to see how familiar men were under the Roman Empire with matters which are perplexing us to-day. We now come to the three purely moral essays, the last written of his works, except the Philippics and certain of his letters, and the Topica. Indeed, when you reach the last year or two of his life, it becomes difficult to assign their exact places to each. He mentions one as written, and then another; but at last this latter appears before the former. They were all composed in the same year, the year before his death--the most active year of his life, as far as his written works are concerned--and I shall here treat De Senectute first, then De Amicitia, and the De Officiis last, believing them to have been published in that order.