not believe that
it is possible to lay down a single general rule respecting the motives
which influence human actions. There is nothing which may not, by
association or by comparison, become an object either of desire or
of aversion. The fear of death is generally considered as one of the
strongest of our feelings. It is the most formidable sanction which
legislators have been able to devise. Yet it is notorious that, as Lord
Bacon has observed, there is no passion by which that fear has not been
often overcome. Physical pain is indisputably an evil; yet it has been
often endured and even welcomed. Innumerable martyrs have exulted in
torments which made the spectators shudder: and to use a more homely
illustration, there are few wives who do not long to be mothers.

Is the love of approbation a stronger motive than the love of wealth? It
is impossible to answer this question generally even in the case of an
individual with whom we are very intimate. We often say, indeed, that
a man loves fame more than money, or money more than fame. But this is
said in a loose and popular sense; for there is scarcely a man who
would not endure a few sneers for a great sum of money, if he were in
pecuniary distress; and scarcely a man, on the other hand, who, if he
were in flourishing circumstances, would expose himself to the hatred
and contempt of the public for a trifle. In order, therefore, to return
a precise answer even about a single human being, we must know what is
the amount of the sacrifice of reputation demanded and of the pecuniary
advantage offered, and in what situation the person to whom the
temptation is proposed stands at the time. But, when the question is
propounded generally about the whole species, the impossibility of
answering is still more evident. Man differs from man; generation from
generation; nation from nation. Education, station, sex, age, accidental
associations, produce infinite shades of variety.

Now, the only mode in which we can conceive it possible to deduce a
theory of government from the principles of human nature is this.
We must find out what are the motives which, in a particular form of
government, impel rulers to bad measures, and what are those which
impel them to good measures. We must then compare the effect of the two
classes of motives; and according as we find the one or the other to
prevail, we must pronounce the form of government in question good or
bad.

Now let it be supposed