After speaking of the Gods, it is most reasonable to show, in the
next place, how we should conduct ourselves towards our country.
For, by Jupiter, our country is as it were a certain secondary God,
and our first and greatest parent. Hence he who gave a name to the
thing did not rashly denominate it πατρις, _patris_; this word being
derived from πατηρ, _pater_, _a father_; but pronounced with a
feminine termination, in order that it might be as it were a mixture
of _father and mother_. This reason, also, proclaims that our country
is to be honoured equally with our two parents; so that we ought
to prefer it to either of them taken separately, and not to honour
the two more than it; but to pay an equal portion of respect to
each. There is, likewise, another reason, which exhorts us to honour
it more than our two parents conjointly; and not only to honour
it beyond these, but also to prefer it to our wife, children, and
friends; and, in short, after the Gods, to all other things.
As, therefore, he is stupid who esteems one finger more than the
five, but he is most reasonable who prefers the five to one; for
the former despises what is more eligible, but the latter, in the
five, preserves also the one finger: after the same manner, he who
wishes to save himself rather than his country, in addition to acting
unlawfully, desires impossibilities. But he who prefers his country
to himself is dear to divinity; and reasons fitly and firmly. At the
same time it has been observed, that though some one should not be
connumerated with the system [or the cooperating combination of the
many], but should be considered apart from it, yet it is fit that
he should prefer the safety of the system to his own preservation.
For the destruction of the city will evince that the safety of the
citizen entirely depends on its existence, just as the abscission of
the hand is attended with the destruction of one finger, as a part of
the hand. We may, therefore, summarily conclude, that general is not
to be separated from private utility: but is to be considered as one
and the same with it. For that which is advantageous to the country
is common to each of the parts of it; since the whole without the
parts is nothing[43]. And vice versa, that which is advantageous to
the citizen extends also to the city, if it is assumed as beneficial
to the citizen. For that which is useful to a dancer, so far as he is
a dancer, will also be advantageous to the whole choir. Depositing,
therefore, all this reasoning in the discursive power of the soul, we
shall receive much light from it in particulars, so that we shall
never omit to perform what is due from us to our country.
Hence, I say, it is necessary that every passion and disease of
the soul should be removed from him who intends to act well by his
country. It is likewise requisite that a citizen should observe the
laws of his country as certain secondary Gods, and should render
himself perfect conformably to their mandate. But he who endeavours
either to transgress, or to make any innovation in the laws, should
be with all possible diligence prevented from doing so, and in every
way opposed. For a contempt of the existing laws, and preferring
new to ancient laws, are things by no means beneficial to a city.
Hence it is requisite that those should be restrained from giving
their votes, and from precipitate innovation, who are pertinaciously
disposed to act in this manner. I therefore commend Zaleucus, the
Locrian legislator, who ordained, that he who intended to introduce
a new law, should do it with a rope about his neck, in order that he
might be immediately strangled, unless he could change the ancient
constitution of the polity, to the very great advantage of the
community. _But customs, which are truly those of the country, and
which, perhaps, are more ancient than the laws themselves, are to be
preserved no less than the laws. The present customs, however, which
are but of yesterday, and which have been so very recently introduced
into every city, are not to be considered as the customs of the
country, [or as the institutes of ancestors]; and, perhaps, neither
are they at all to be regarded as customs[44]._ In the next place,
because custom is an unwritten law, having for its inscription a good
legislator, viz. the approbation of all those that use it; perhaps,
on this account, it is proximate to things which are naturally just.