Areopagiticus (26-30)

In a word, our forefathers had resolved that the people as the supreme master of the state, should appoint the magistrates, call to account those who failed in their duty, and judge in cases of dispute; while those citizens who could afford the time and possessed sufficient means[*] should devote themselves to the care of the commonwealth, as servants of the people,

entitled to receive commendation if they proved faithful to their trust, and contenting themselves with this honor, but condemned, on the other hand, if they governed badly, to meet with no mercy, but to suffer the severest punishment.[*] And how, pray, could one find a democracy more stable or more just than this, which appointed the most capable men to have charge of its affairs but gave to the people authority over their rulers?

Such was the constitution of their polity, and from this it is easy to see that also in their conduct day by day they never failed to act with propriety and justice; for when people have laid sound foundations for the conduct of the whole state it follows that in the details of their lives they must reflect the character of their government.

First of all as to their conduct towards the gods—for it is right to begin with them[*]—they were not erratic or irregular in their worship of them or in the celebration of their rites; they did not, for example, drive three hundred oxen in procession to the altar,[*] when it entered their heads to do so,while omitting, when the caprice seized them, the sacrifices instituted by their fathers;[*] neither did they observe on a grand scale the festivals imported from abroad, whenever these were attended by a feast, while contracting with the lowest bidder for the sacrifices demanded by the holiest rites of their religion.

For their only care was not to destroy any institution of their fathers and to introduce nothing which was not approved by custom, believing that reverence consists, not in extravagant expenditures, but in disturbing none of the rites which their ancestors had handed on to them. And so also the gifts of the gods were visited upon them, not fitfully or capriciously, but seasonably both for the ploughing of the land and for the ingathering of its fruits.