Areopagiticus (71-75)

But perhaps some of you may wonder what my purpose is in trying to persuade you to exchange the polity which has achieved so many fine things for another, and why it is that after having just now eulogized democracy in such high terms, I veer about capriciously and criticize and condemn the present order.

Well, I reproach men in private life when they succeed in a few things and fail in many, and regard them as falling short of what they ought to be; and, more than that, when men are sprung from noble ancestors and yet are only a little better than those who are distinguished for depravity, and much worse than their fathers, I rebuke them and would counsel them to cease from being what they are.

And I am of the same mind also regarding public affairs. For I think that we ought not to be proud or even satisfied should we have shown ourselves more law-regarding than men accursed by the gods and afflicted with madness,[*] but ought much rather to feel aggrieved and resentful should we prove to be worse than our ancestors; for it is their excellence and not the depravity of the Thirty which we should strive to emulate, especially since it behoves Athenians to be the best among mankind.

This is not the first time that I have expressed this sentiment; I have done so many times and before many people. For I know that while other regions produce varieties of fruits and trees and animals, each peculiar to its locality and much better than those of other lands, our own country is able to bear and nurture men who are not only the most gifted in the world in the arts and in the powers of action and of speech, but are also above all others in valor and in virtue.[*]

This conclusion we may justly draw from the ancient struggles which they carried on against the Amazons and the Thracians and all of the Peloponnesians, and also from the wars which they waged against the Persians, in which, both when they fought alone and when they were aided by the Peloponnesians, whether on land or on the sea, they were victorious over the barbarians and were adjudged the meed of valor;[*] for they could not have achieved these things, had they not far surpassed other men in the endowments of nature.