ersons; arts and
sciences took their rise, and flourished only in those few small
territories were the people were free. And though learning may continue
after liberty is lost, as it did in Rome, for a while, upon the
foundations laid under the commonwealth, and the particular patronage of
some emperors; yet it hardly ever began under a tyranny in any nation:
Because slavery is of all things the greatest clog and obstacle to
speculation. And indeed, arbitrary power is but the first natural step
from anarchy or the savage life; the adjusting of power and freedom
being an effect and consequence of maturer thinking: And this is nowhere
so duly regulated as in a limited monarchy: Because I believe it may
pass for a maxim in state, that the administration cannot be placed in
too few hands, nor the legislature in too many. Now in this material
point, the constitution of the English government far exceeds all others
at this time on the earth, to which the present establishment of the
Church doth so happily agree, that I think, whoever is an enemy to
either, must of necessity be so to both.

He thinks, as our monarchy is constituted, a hereditary right is much to
be preferred before election. Because the government here, especially by
some late amendments, is so regularly disposed in all its parts, that it
almost executes itself. And therefore upon the death of a prince among
us, the administration goes on without any rub or interruption. For the
same reasons we have little to apprehend from the weakness or fury of
our monarchs, who have such wise councils to guide the first, and laws
to restrain the other. And therefore this hereditary right should be
kept so sacred, as never to break the succession, unless where the
preserving of it may endanger the constitution; which is not from any
intrinsic merit, or unalienable right in a particular family, but to
avoid the consequences that usually attend the ambition of competitors,
to which elective kingdoms are exposed; and which is the only obstacle
to hinder them from arriving at the greatest perfection that government
can possibly reach. Hence appears the absurdity of that distinction
between a king _de facto_, and one _de jure_, with respect to us. For
every limited monarch is a king _de jure_, because he governs by the
consent of the whole, which is authority sufficient to abolish all
precedent right. If a king come in by conquest, he is no longer a
limited monarch, if he afterw