Pure despotism is the punishment for men's bad behaviour. If a community is governed by a single person or by several, that is clearly because it has not had either the courage or the skill to govern itself.

A society of men governed arbitrarily resembles perfectly a herd of cattle yoked in the service of a master. He feeds them only so that they are in a condition to serve him; he only tends them when they are ill so that in [good] health they will be useful to him; he fattens them up so that he can obtain nourishment from what their bodies produce; he uses the skins of some to harness others to the plough.

Thus a nation is subjugated either by a skillful fellow-countryman, who has profited from its stupidity or divisiveness, or by a thief, known as a conqueror who, with other thieves, has taken possession of its territory, killed those who resisted, and made slaves of the cowards he allows to live.

This thief, who deserves to be broken on the wheel, sometimes has altars built to himself. The enslaved nation has seen in the thief's children a race of gods; they have viewed any questioning of their authority as blasphemy, and the slightest attempt to gain freedom as sacrilege.