Book VI.
Chap. 12.It often happens that a legislator desirous of reforming an evil, thinks of nothing but of this reformation; his eyes are open only to this object, and shut to its inconveniencies. When the evil is redressed, there is nothing more seen but the severity of the legislator; yet there still remains an evil in the state that has sprung from this severity; the minds of the people are corrupted, and become habituated to despotic power.
Lysander[1] having obtained a victory over the Athenians, the prisoners were ordered to be tried in consequence of an accusation brought against the Athenians of having thrown all the captives of two gallies down a precipice, and of having resolved in full assembly to cut off the hands of those whom they should chance to make prisoners. The Athenians were therefore all massacred, except Adymantes who had opposed this decree. Lysander reproached Philocles, before he was put to death, with having depraved the people's minds and given lessons of cruelty to all Greece.
"The Argives, says Plutarch[2], having put fifteen hundred of their citizens to death, the Athenians ordered sacrifices of expiation, that it might please tbs Gods to turn the hearts of the Athenians from so cruel a thought."
There are two sorts of corruption; one when the people do not observe the laws; the other when they are corrupted by the laws; an incurable evil, because it is in the very remedy itself.
