For you know that the decisions of prudence (contrary to the system of
the insane reasoners) differ from those of judicature; and that almost
all the former are determined on the more or the less, the earlier or
the later, and on a balance of advantage and inconvenience, of good and
evil.
In all considerations which turn upon the question of vesting or
continuing the state solely and exclusively in some one description of
citizens, prudent legislators will consider how far _the general form
and principles of their commonwealth render it fit to be cast into an
oligarchical shape, or to remain always in it_. We know that the
government of Ireland (the same as the British) is not in its
constitution _wholly_ aristocratical; and as it is not such in its form,
so neither is it in its spirit. If it had been inveterately
aristocratical, exclusions might be more patiently submitted to. The lot
of one plebeian would be the lot of all; and an habitual reverence and
admiration of certain families might make the people content to see
government wholly in hands to whom it seemed naturally to belong.
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