In every human being, “reason ought to reign like a king,” and in every respublica, “sound deliberation” is the best way to rule. So we saw in Chapter 7. If that were true, a nation could be ruled “by the authoritative nod of the laws” – wisely, freely, without violence. Yet, is that not utopian? Is that not utterly impossible? Certainly it is, without a nation's education in the arts of liberty, which are the work of deliberative reason. At their best, those arts have given rise to good customs and good fashionings of law that protect self-governing and free citizens: fashionings such as private property, money, and contracts; fashionings that are grounded in a careful and extensive study of the human soul and the universe. So Cicero and More argued.