For Solon, when
he was asked whether he had given his citizens the best laws,
answered wisely, "Yea, of such as they would receive:" and Plato,
finding that his own heart could not agree with the corrupt manners
of his country, refused to bear place or office, saying, "That a
man's country was to be used as his parents were, that is, with
humble persuasions, and not with contestations." And Caesar's
counsellor put in the same caveat, Non ad vetera instituta revocans
quae jampridem corruptis moribus ludibrio sunt; and Cicero noteth
this error directly in Cato II. when he writes to his friend
Atticus, Cato optime sentit, sed nocet interdum reipublicae;
loquitur enim tanquam in republica Platonis, non tanquam in faece
Romuli. And the same Cicero doth excuse and expound the
philosophers for going too far and being too exact in their
prescripts when he saith, Isti ipse praeceptores virtutis et
magistri videntur fines officiorum paulo longius quam natura vellet
protulisse, ut cum ad ultimum animo contendissemus, ibi tamen, ubi
oportet, consisteremus: and yet himself might have said, Monitis
sum minor ipse meis; for it was his own fault, though not in so
extreme a degree.
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