Note 15 — Chapter X · COMPARISON BETWEEN THREE KINDS OF GOVERNMENT ACCORDING TO THEIR SEVERAL INCONVENIENCES.

Compacted by the artifice of men, &c.] It seems the ancients who made that same fable of Prometheus, pointed at this. They say that Prometheus, having stolen fire from the sun, formed a man out of clay, and that for this deed he was tortured by Jupiter with a perpetual gnawing in his liver. Which is, that by human invention, which is signified by Prometheus, laws and justice were by imitation taken from monarchy; by virtue whereof, as by fire removed from its natural orb, the multitude, as the dirt and dregs of men, was as it were quickened and formed into a civil person; which is termed aristocracy or democracy. But the author and abettors being found, who might securely and quietly have lived under the natural jurisdiction of kings, do thus smart for it; that being exposed still to alteration, they are tormented with perpetual cares, suspicions, and dissensions.