Were there such a combination of honest men, who without any regard to places would endeavour to extirpate all such furious zealots as would sacrifice one half of their country to the passion and interest of the other; as also such infamous hypocrites that are for promoting their (10) own advantage under colour of the public good; with all the profligate, immoral retainers to each side, that have nothing to recommend them but an implicit submission to their leaders;--we should soon see that furious party spirit extinguished, which may in time expose us to the (15) derision and contempt of all the nations about us. A member of this society that would thus carefully employ himself in making room for merit, by throwing down the worthless and depraved part of mankind from those conspicuous stations of life to which they have been (20) sometimes advanced, and all this without any regard to his private interest, would be no small benefactor to his country. I remember to have read in Diodorus Siculus an account of a very active little animal, which I think he calls the (25) ichneumon, that makes it the whole business of his life to break the eggs of the crocodile, which he is always in search after. This instinct is the more remarkable because the ichneumon never feeds upon the eggs he has broken, nor in any other way finds his account in them. Were it not for the incessant labours of this industrious animal, Egypt, says the historian, would be overrun with crocodiles; for the Egyptians are so far from destroying those pernicious creatures that they worship them as (162: 5) gods. If we look into the behaviour of ordinary partisans, we shall find them far from resembling this disinterested animal, and rather acting after the example of the wild Tartars, who are ambitious of destroying a man of the (10) most extraordinary parts and accomplishments, as thinking that upon his decease the same talents, whatever post they qualified him for, enter of course into his destroyer.