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THREE:If private society exercised a demoralising influence on its most gifted members, and in turn suffered a still further debasement by listening to their opinions, the same fatal interchange of corruption went on still more actively in public life, so far, at least, as Athenian democracy was concerned. The people would tolerate no statesman who did not pamper199 their appetites; and the statesmen, for their own ambitious purposes, attended solely to the material wants of the people, entirely neglecting their spiritual interests. In this respect, Pericles, the most admired of all, had been the chief of sinners; for ��he was the first who gave the people pay and made them idle and cowardly, and encouraged them in the love of talk and of money.�� Accordingly, a righteous retribution overtook him, for ��at the very end of his life they convicted him of theft, and almost put him to death.�� So it had been with the other boasted leaders, Miltiades, Themistocles, and Cimon; all suffered from what is falsely called the ingratitude of the people. Like injudicious keepers, they had made the animal committed to their charge fiercer instead of gentler, until its savage propensities were turned against themselves. Or, changing the comparison, they were like purveyors of luxury, who fed the State on a diet to which its present ��ulcerated and swollen condition�� was due. They had ��filled the city full of harbours, and docks, and walls, and revenues and all that, and had left no room for justice and temperance.�� One only among the elder statesmen, Aristeides, is excepted from this sweeping condemnation, and, similarly, Socrates is declared to have been the only true statesman of his time.127To make this plainer, the laws of forces, the proportion of parts, strength of material, and so on, are subjects of general knowledge that may be acquired from books, and understood without the aid of an acquaintance with the technical conditions of either the mode of constructing or the manner of operating machines; but how to construct proper patterns for castings, or how the parts of machinery should be moulded, forged, or fitted, is special knowledge, and must have reference to particular cases. The proportions of pulleys, bearings, screws, or other regular details of machinery, may be learned from general rules and principles, but the hand skill that enters into the manufacture of these articles cannot be learned except by observation and experience. The general design, or the disposition of metal in machine-framing, can be to a great extent founded upon rules and constants that have general application; but, as in the case of wheels, the plans of moulding such machine frames are not governed by constant rules or performed in a uniform manner. Patterns of different kinds may be employed; moulds may be made in various ways, and at a greater and less expense; the metal can be mixed to produce a hard or a soft casting, a strong or a weak one; the conditions under which the metal is poured may govern the soundness or shrinkage,��things that are determined by special instead of general conditions.