DIVISION OF POWER.
THE prize of supreme power is too tempting to admit
of fair play in the game of ambition; and it is wise to
lessen its value by dividing it : at least it is wise to do
so, under a form of government that cannot admit the
better expedient of rendering the executive hereditary;
an expedient (gross and absurd as it seems to be) the
best calculated, perhaps, to obviate the effects of ambition
upon the stability of governments, by narrowing the
field on which it acts, and the object for which it con
tends.— [Edinburgh Review. 1803.]
THE prize of supreme power is too tempting to admit
of fair play in the game of ambition; and it is wise to
lessen its value by dividing it : at least it is wise to do
so, under a form of government that cannot admit the
better expedient of rendering the executive hereditary;
an expedient (gross and absurd as it seems to be) the
best calculated, perhaps, to obviate the effects of ambition
upon the stability of governments, by narrowing the
field on which it acts, and the object for which it con
tends.— [Edinburgh Review. 1803.]