OCEANA
By James Harrington
INTRODUCTION TO OCEANA
JAMES HARRINGTON, eldest son of Sir Sapcotes Harrington of Exton, in
Rutlandshire, was born in the reign of James I, in January, 1611, five
years before the death of Shakespeare. He was two or three years younger
than John Milton. His great-grandfather was Sir James Harrington, who
married Lucy, daughter of Sir William Sidney, lived with her to their
golden wedding-day, and had eighteen children, through whom he counted
himself, before his death, patriarch in a family that in his own time
produced eight dukes, three marquises, seventy earls, twenty-seven
viscounts, and thirty-six barons, sixteen of them all being Knights of
the Garter. James Harrington’s ideal of a commonwealth was the design,
therefore, of a man in many ways connected with the chief nobility of
England.
Sir Sapcotes Harrington married twice, and had by each of his wives two
sons and two daughters. James Harrington was eldest son by the first
marriage, which was to Jane, daughter of Sir William Samuel of Upton, in
Northamptonshire. James Harrington’s brother became a merchant; of his
half-brothers, one went to sea, the other became a captain in the army.
As a child, James Harrington was studious, and so sedate that it was
said playfully of him he rather kept his parents and teachers in awe
than needed correction; but in after-life his quick wit made him full of
playfulness in conversation. In 1629 he entered Trinity College, Oxford,
as a gentleman commoner. There he had for tutor William Chillingworth,
a Fellow of the college, who after conversion to the Church of Rome had
reasoned his way back into Protestant opinions. Chillingworth became a
famous champion of Protestantism in the question between the Churches,
although many Protestants attacked him as unsound because he would not
accept the Athanasian Creed and had some other reservations.
Harrington prepared himself for foreign travel by study of modern
languages, but before he went abroad, and while he was still under age,
his father died and he succeeded to his patrimony. The socage tenure of
his estate gave him free choice of his own guardian, and he chose his
mother’s mother, Lady Samuel.
He then began the season of travel which usually followed studies at the
university, a part of his training to which he had looked forward with
especial interest. He went first to Holland, which had been in Queen
Elizabeth’s time the battle-ground of civil and religious liberty.
Before he left England he used to say he knew of monarchy, anarchy,
aristocracy, democracy, oligarchy, only as hard words to be looked for
in a dictionary. But his interest in problems of government began to be
awakened while he was among the Dutch. He served in the regiment of
Lord Craven, and afterward in that of Sir Robert Stone; was much at The
Hague; became familiar with the Court of the Prince of Orange, and with
King James’s daughter, the Queen of Bohemia, who, with her husband the
Prince Elector, was then a fugitive to Holland. Lord Harrington, who had
once acted as governor to the princess, and won her affection, was James
Harrington’s uncle, and she now cordially welcomed the young student of
life for his uncle’s sake, and for his own pleasantness of outward wit
and inward gravity of thought. Harrington was taken with him by the
exiled and plundered Prince Elector, when he paid a visit to the Court
of Denmark, and he was intrusted afterward with the chief care of the
prince’s affairs in England.
From Holland, James Harrington passed through Flanders into France, and
thence to Italy. When he came back to England, some courtiers who were
with him in Rome told Charles I that Harrington had been too squeamish
at the Pope’s consecration of wax lights, in refusing to obtain a light,
as others did, by kissing his Holiness’s toe. The King told Harrington
that he might have complied with a custom which only signified respect
to a temporal prince. But his Majesty was satisfied with the reply, that
having had the honor to kiss his Majesty’s hand, he thought it beneath
him to kiss any other prince’s foot.
Of all places in Italy, Venice pleased Harrington best. He was deeply
interested in the Venetian form of government, and his observations
bore fruit in many suggestions for the administration of the
Commonwealth of Oceana.
After his return to England, being of age, James Harrington cared
actively for the interests of his younger brothers and sisters. It was
he who made his brother William a merchant. William Harrington throve,
and for his ingenuity in matters of construction he was afterward made
one of the Fellows of the newly formed Royal Society. He took pains over
the training of his sisters, making no difference between sisters and
half-sisters, and treating his step-mother as a mother. He filled
his home with loving-kindness, and was most liberal in giving help
to friends. When he was told that he often threw away his bounty on
ungrateful persons, he playfully told his advisers they were mercenary
and that he saw they sold their gifts, since they expected so great a
return as gratitude.
James Harrington’s bent was for the study of life, and he made no active
suit for court employment. But he went to court, where Charles I liked
him, and admitted him as one of his privy chamber extraordinary, in
which character he went with the King in his first expedition against
the Scots.
Because Charles I knew him and liked him, and because he had shown
himself no partisan of either side in the civil war, though he was
known to be inclined, in the way of abstract opinion, toward a form of
government that was not monarchy, the commissioners appointed in 1646
to bring Charles from Newcastle named Harrington as one of the King’s
attendants. The King was pleased, and Harrington was appointed a groom
of the bedchamber at Holmby. He followed faithfully the fortunes of
the fallen King, never saying even to the King himself a word in
contradiction of his own principles of liberty, and finding nothing
in his principles or in his temper that should prevent him from paying
honor to his sovereign, and seeking to secure for him a happy issue
out of his afflictions. Antony à Wood says that, “His Majesty loved
Harrington’s company, and, finding him to be an ingenious man, chose
rather to converse with him than with others of his chamber: they had
often discourses concerning government; but when they happened to talk
of a commonwealth the King seemed not to endure it.”
Harrington used all the influence he had with those in whose power the
King was, to prevent the urging of avoidable questions that would stand
in the way of such a treaty as they professed to seek during the King’s
imprisonment at Carisbrooke. Harrington’s friendly interventions on the
King’s behalf before the Parliament commissioners at Newport caused
him, indeed, to be suspected; and when the King was removed from
Carisbrooke to Hurst Castle, Harrington was not allowed to remain in his
service. But afterward, when King Charles was being taken to Windsor,
Harrington got leave to bid him farewell at the door of his carriage. As
he was about to kneel, the King took him by the hand and pulled him in.
For a few days he was left with the King, but an oath was required of
him that he would not assist in, or conceal knowledge of any attempt
to procure, the King’s escape. He would not take the oath; and was this
time not only dismissed from the King’s service but himself imprisoned,
until Ireton obtained his release. Before the King’s death, Harrington
found his way to him again, and he was among those who were with Charles
I upon the scaffold.
After the King’s execution, Harrington was for some time secluded in
his study. Monarchy was gone; some form of commonwealth was to be
established; and he set to work upon the writing of “Oceana,” calmly
to show what form of government, since men were free to choose, to him
seemed best.
He based his work on an opinion he had formed that the troubles of
the time were not due wholly to the intemperance of faction, the
misgovernment of a king, or the stubbornness of a people, but to
change in the balance of property; and he laid the foundations of his
commonwealth in the opinion that empire follows the balance of property.
Then he showed the commonwealth of Oceana in action, with safeguards
against future shiftings of that balance, and with a popular government
in which all offices were filled by men chosen by ballot, who should
hold office for a limited term. Thus there was to be a constant flow of
new blood through the political system, and the representative was to be
kept true as a reflection of the public mind.
The Commonwealth of Oceana was England. Harrington called Scotland
Marpesia; and Ireland, Panopea. London he called Emporium; the Thames,
Halcionia; Westminster, Hiera; Westminster Hall, Pantheon. The Palace of
St. James was Alma; Hampton Court, Convallium; Windsor, Mount Celia. By
Hemisna, Harrington meant the river Trent. Past sovereigns of England
he renamed for Oceana: William the Conqueror became Turbo; King John,
Adoxus; Richard II, Dicotome; Henry VII, Panurgus; Henry VIII, Coraunus;
Elizabeth, Parthenia; James I, Morpheus. He referred to Hobbes as
Leviathan; and to Francis Bacon, as Verulamius. Oliver Cromwell he
renamed Olphaus Megaletor.
Harrington’s book was seized while printing, and carried to Whitehall.
Harrington went to Cromwell’s daughter, Lady Claypole, played with her
three-year-old child while waiting for her, and said to her, when she
came and found him with her little girl upon his lap, “Madam, you have
come in the nick of time, for I was just about to steal this pretty
lady.” “Why should you?” “Why shouldn’t I, unless you cause your father
to restore a child of mine that he has stolen?” It was only, he said,
a kind of political romance; so far from any treason against her father
that he hoped she would let him know it was to be dedicated to him. So
the book was restored; and it was published in the time of Cromwell’s
Commonwealth, in the year 1656.
This treatise, which had its origin in the most direct pressure of the
problem of government upon the minds of men continues the course of
thought on which Machiavelli’s “Prince” had formed one famous station,
and Hobbes’s “Leviathan,” another.
“Oceana,” when published, was widely read and actively attacked. One
opponent of its doctrines was Dr. Henry Ferne, afterward Bishop of
Chester. Another was Matthew Wren, eldest son to the Bishop of Ely.
He was one of those who met for scientific research at the house of Dr.
Wilkins, and had, said Harrington, “an excellent faculty of magnifying
a louse and diminishing a commonwealth.”
In 1659, Harrington published an abridgment of his Oceana as “The Art of
Lawgiving,” in three books. Other pieces followed, in which he
defended or developed his opinions. He again urged them when Cromwell’s
Commonwealth was in its death-throes. Then he fell back upon argument
at nightly meetings of a Rota Club which met in the New Palace Yard,
Westminster. Milton’s old pupil, Cyriac Skinner, was one of its members;
and its elections were by ballot, with rotation in the tenure of all
offices. The club was put an end to at the Restoration, when Harrington
retired to his study and amused himself by putting his “System of
Politics” into the form of “Aphorisms.”
On December 28, 1661, James Harrington, then fifty years old, was
arrested and carried to the Tower as a traitor. His Aphorisms were on
his desk, and as they also were to be carried off, he asked only that
they might first be stitched together in their proper order. Why he was
arrested, he was not told. One of his sisters pleaded in vain to the
King. He was falsely accused of complicity in an imaginary plot, of
which nothing could be made by its investigators. No heed was paid
to the frank denials of a man of the sincerest nature, who never had
concealed his thoughts or actions. “Why,” he was asked, at his first
examination by Lord Lauderdale, who was one of his kinsmen, “why did
he, as a private man, meddle with politics? What had a private man to
do with government?” His answer was: “My lord, there is not any public
person, nor any magistrate, that has written on politics, worth a
button. All they that have been excellent in this way have been private
men, as private men, my lord, as myself. There is Plato, there is
Aristotle, there is Livy, there is Machiavel. My lord, I can sum up
Aristotle’s ‘Politics’ in a very few words: he says, there is the
Barbarous Monarchy--such a one where the people have no votes in making
the laws; he says, there is the Heroic Monarchy--such a one where the
people have their votes in making the laws; and then, he says, there is
Democracy, and affirms that a man cannot be said to have liberty but in
a democracy only.” Lord Lauderdale here showing impatience, Harrington
added: “I say Aristotle says so. I have not said so much. And under what
prince was it? Was it not under Alexander, the greatest prince then in
the world? I beseech you, my lord, did Alexander hang up Aristotle? did
he molest him? Livy, for a commonwealth, is one of the fullest authors;
did not he write under Augustus Caesar? Did Caesar hang up Livy? did
he molest him? Machiavel, what a commonwealthsman was he! but he wrote
under the Medici when they were princes in Florence: did they hang up
Machiavel, or did they molest him? I have done no otherwise than as the
greatest politicians: the King will do no otherwise than as the greatest
princes.”
That was too much to hope, even in a dream, of the low-minded Charles
II. Harrington could not obtain even the show of justice in a public
trial. He was kept five months an untried prisoner in the Tower, only
sheltered from daily brutalities by bribe to the lieutenant. When his
habeas corpus had been moved for, it was at first flatly refused; and
when it had been granted, Harrington was smuggled away from the Tower
between one and two o’clock in the morning, and carried on board a ship
that took him to closer imprisonment on St. Nicholas Island, opposite
Plymouth. There his health suffered seriously, and his family obtained
his removal to imprisonment in Plymouth by giving a bond of £5,000
as sureties against his escape. In Plymouth, Harrington suffered from
scurvy, and at last he became insane.
When he had been made a complete wreck in body and in mind, his gracious
Majesty restored Harrington to his family. He never recovered health,
but still occupied himself much with his pen, writing, among other
things, a serious argument to prove that they were themselves mad who
thought him so.
In those last days of his shattered life James Harrington married an old
friend of the family, a witty lady, daughter of Sir Marmaduke Dorrell,
of Buckinghamshire. Gout was added to his troubles; then he was
palsied; and he died at Westminster, at the age of sixty-six, on
September 11, 1677. He was buried in St. Margaret’s Church, by the grave
of Sir Walter Raleigh, on the south side of the altar.
H. M.
OCEANA
PART I. THE PRELIMINARIES
Showing the Principles of Government
JANOTTI, the most excellent describer of the Commonwealth of Venice,
divides the whole series of government into two times or periods: the
one ending with the liberty of Rome, which was the course or empire, as
I may call it, of ancient prudence, first discovered to mankind by
God himself in the fabric of the commonwealth of Israel, and afterward
picked out of his footsteps in nature, and unanimously followed by the
Greeks and Romans; the other beginning with the arms of Caesar, which,
extinguishing liberty, were the transition of ancient into modern
prudence, introduced by those inundations of Huns, Goths, Vandals,
Lombards, Saxons, which, breaking the Roman Empire, deformed the whole
face of the world with those ill-features of government, which at this
time are become far worse in these western parts, except Venice, which,
escaping the hands of the barbarians by virtue of its impregnable
situation, has had its eye fixed upon ancient prudence, and is attained
to a perfection even beyond the copy.
Relation being had to these two times, government (to define it de jure,
or according to ancient prudence) is an art whereby a civil society of
men is instituted and preserved upon the foundation of common right or
interest; or, to follow Aristotle and Livy, it is the empire of laws,
and not of men.
And government (to define it de facto, or according to modern prudence)
is an art whereby some man, or some few men, subject a city or a nation,
and rule it according to his or their private interest; which, because
the laws in such cases are made according to the interest of a man, or
of some few families, may be said to be the empire of men, and not of
laws.
The former kind is that which Machiavel (whose books are neglected) is
the only politician that has gone about to retrieve; and that Leviathan
(who would have his book imposed upon the universities) goes about to
destroy. For “it is,” says he, “another error of Aristotle’s politics
that in a well-ordered commonwealth, not men should govern, but the
laws. What man that has his natural senses, though he can neither write
nor read, does not find himself governed by them he fears, and believes
can kill or hurt him when he obeys not? or, who believes that the law
can hurt him, which is but words and paper, without the hands and swords
of men?” I confess that the magistrate upon his bench is that to the
law which a gunner upon his platform is to his cannon. Nevertheless, I
should not dare to argue with a man of any ingenuity after this manner.
A whole army, though they can neither write nor read, are not afraid
of a platform, which they know is but earth or stone; nor of a cannon,
which, without a hand to give fire to it, is but cold iron; therefore a
whole army is afraid of one man. But of this kind is the ratiocination
of Leviathan, as I shall show in divers places that come in my way,
throughout his whole politics, or worse; as where he says, “of Aristotle
and of Cicero, of the Greeks, and of the Romans, who lived under popular
States, that they derived those rights, not from the principles of
nature, but transcribed them into their books out of the practice of
their own commonwealths, as grammarians describe the rules of language
out of poets.” Which is as if a man should tell famous Harvey that he
transcribed his circulation of the blood, not out of the principles of
nature, but out of the anatomy of this or that body.
To go on therefore with his preliminary discourse, I shall divide it,
according to the two definitions of government relating to Janotti’s two
times, in two parts: the first, treating of the principles of government
in general, and according to the ancients; the second, treating of
the late governments of Oceana in particular, and in that of modern
prudence.
Government, according to the ancients, and their learned disciple
Machiavel, the only politician of later ages, is of three kinds: the
government of one man, or of the better sort, or of the whole people;
which, by their more learned names, are called monarchy, aristocracy,
and democracy. These they hold, through their proneness to degenerate,
to be all evil. For whereas they that govern should govern according
to reason, if they govern according to passion they do that which they
should not do. Wherefore, as reason and passion are two things, so
government by reason is one thing, and the corruption of government by
passion is another thing, but not always another government: as a body
that is alive is one thing, and a body that is dead is another thing,
but not always another creature, though the corruption of one comes at
length to be the generation of another. The corruption then of monarchy
is called tyranny; that of aristocracy, oligarchy and that of democracy,
anarchy. But legislators, having found these three governments at the
best to be naught, have invented another, consisting of a mixture of
them all, which only is good. This is the doctrine of the ancients.
But Leviathan is positive that they are all deceived, and that there is
no other government in nature than one of the three; as also that the
flesh of them cannot stink, the names of their corruptions being but the
names of men’s fancies, which will be understood when we are shown which
of them was Senatus Populusque Romanus.
To go my own way, and yet to follow the ancients, the principles
of government are twofold: internal, or the goods of the mind; and
external, or the goods of fortune. The goods of the mind are natural or
acquired virtues, as wisdom, prudence, and courage, etc. The goods of
fortune are riches. There be goods also of the body, as health, beauty,
strength; but these are not to be brought into account upon this score,
because if a man or an army acquires victory or empire, it is more from
their discipline, arms, and courage than from their natural health,
beauty, or strength, in regard that a people conquered may have more of
natural strength, beauty, and health, and yet find little remedy. The
principles of government then are in the goods of the mind, or in the
goods of fortune. To the goods of the mind answers authority; to the
goods of fortune, power or empire. Wherefore Leviathan, though he be
right where he says that “riches are power,” is mistaken where he
says that “prudence, or the reputation of prudence, is power;” for the
learning or prudence of a man is no more power than the learning or
prudence of a book or author, which is properly authority. A learned
writer may have authority though he has no power; and a foolish
magistrate may have power, though he has otherwise no esteem or
authority. The difference of these two is observed by Livy in Evander,
of whom he says that he governed rather by the authority of others than
by his own power.
To begin with riches, in regard that men are hung upon these, not of
choice as upon the other, but of necessity and by the teeth; forasmuch
as he who wants bread is his servant that will feed him, if a man thus
feeds a whole people, they are under his empire.
Empire is of two kinds, domestic and national, or foreign and
provincial.
Domestic empire is founded upon dominion. Dominion is property, real or
personal; that is to say, in lands, or in money and goods.
Lands, or the parts and parcels of a territory, are held by the
proprietor or proprietors, lord or lords of it, in some proportion;
and such (except it be in a city that has little or no land, and whose
revenue is in trade) as is the proportion or balance of dominion or
property in land, such is the nature of the empire.
If one man be sole landlord of a territory, or overbalance the people,
for example, three parts in four, he is grand seignior; for so the Turk
is called from his property, and his empire is absolute monarchy.
If the few or a nobility, or a nobility with the clergy, be landlords,
or overbalance the people to the like proportion, it makes the Gothic
balance (to be shown at large in the second part of this discourse),
and the empire is mixed monarchy, as that of Spain, Poland, and late of
Oceana.
And if the whole people be landlords, or hold the lands so divided among
them that no one man, or number of men, within the compass of the few or
aristocracy, overbalance them, the empire (without the interposition of
force) is a commonwealth.
If force be interposed in any of these three cases, it must either frame
the government to the foundation, or the foundation to the government;
or holding the government not according to the balance, it is not
natural, but violent; and therefore if it be at the devotion of a
prince, it is tyranny; if at the devotion of the few, oligarchy; or
if in the power of the people, anarchy: Each of which confusions, the
balance standing otherwise, is but of short continuance, because against
the nature of the balance, which, not destroyed, destroys that which
opposes it.
But there be certain other confusions, which, being rooted in the
balance, are of longer continuance, and of worse consequence; as, first,
where a nobility holds half the property, or about that proportion, and
the people the other half; in which case, without altering the balance
there is no remedy but the one must eat out the other, as the people did
the nobility in Athens, and the nobility the people in Rome. Secondly,
when a prince holds about half the dominion, and the people the other
half (which was the case of the Roman emperors, planted partly upon
their military colonies and partly upon the Senate and the people), the
government becomes a very shambles, both of the princes and the people.
Somewhat of this nature are certain governments at this day, which are
said to subsist by confusion. In this case, to fix the balance is to
entail misery; but in the three former, not to fix it is to lose the
government. Wherefore it being unlawful in Turkey that any should
possess land but the Grand Seignior, the balance is fixed by the law,
and that empire firm. Nor, though the kings often sell was the throne
of Oceana known to shake, until the statute of alienations broke the
pillars, by giving way to the nobility to sell their estates. While
Lacedaemon held to the division of land made by Lycurgus, it was
immovable; but, breaking that, could stand no longer. This kind of law
fixing the balance in lands is called agrarian, and was first introduced
by God himself, who divided the land of Canaan to his people by lots,
and is of such virtue that wherever it has held, that government has
not altered, except by consent; as in that unparalleled example of the
people of Israel, when being in liberty they would needs choose a
king. But without an agrarian law, government, whether monarchical,
aristocratical, or popular, has no long lease.
As for dominion, personal or in money, it may now and then stir up a
Melius or a Manlius, which, if the Commonwealth be not provided with
some kind of dictatorian power, may be dangerous, though it has been
seldom or never successful; because to property producing empire, it
is required that it should have some certain root or foothold, which,
except in land, it cannot have, being otherwise as it were upon the
wing.
Nevertheless, in such cities as subsist mostly by trade, and have little
or no land, as Holland and Genoa, the balance of treasure may be equal
to that of land in the cases mentioned.
But Leviathan, though he seems to skew at antiquity, following his
furious master Carneades, has caught hold of the public sword, to which
he reduces all manner and matter of government; as, where he affirms
this opinion (that any monarch receives his power by covenant; that is
to say, upon conditions) “to proceed from the not understanding this
easy truth, that covenants being but words and breath, have no power to
oblige, contain, constrain, or protect any man, but what they have from
the public sword.” But as he said of the law, that without this sword
it is but paper, so he might have thought of this sword, that without a
hand it is but cold iron. The hand which holds this sword is the militia
of a nation; and the militia of a nation is either an army in the field,
or ready for the field upon occasion. But an army is a beast that has a
great belly, and must be fed: wherefore this will come to what pastures
you have, and what pastures you have will come to the balance of
property, without which the public sword is but a name or mere spitfrog.
Wherefore, to set that which Leviathan says of arms and of contracts a
little straighter, he that can graze this beast with the great belly,
as the Turk does his Timariots, may well deride him that imagines he
received his power by covenant, or is obliged to any such toy. It being
in this case only that covenants are but words and breath. But if the
property of the nobility, stocked with their tenants and retainers, be
the pasture of that beast, the ox knows his master’s crib; and it is
impossible for a king in such a constitution to reign otherwise than by
covenant; or if he break it, it is words that come to blows.
“But,” says he, “when an assembly of men is made sovereign, then no man
imagines any such covenant to have part in the institution.” But what
was that by Publicola of appeal to the people, or that whereby the
people had their tribunes? “Fie,” says he, “nobody is so dull as to say
that the people of Rome made a covenant with the Romans, to hold the
sovereignty on such or such conditions, which, not performed, the Romans
might depose the Roman people.” In which there be several remarkable
things; for he holds the Commonwealth of Rome to have consisted of one
assembly, whereas it consisted of the Senate and the people; that they
were not upon covenant, whereas every law enacted by them was a covenant
between them; that the one assembly was made sovereign, whereas the
people, who only were sovereign, were such from the beginning, as
appears by the ancient style of their covenants or laws--“The Senate has
resolved, the people have decreed,” that a council being made sovereign,
cannot be made such upon conditions, whereas the Decemvirs being a
council that was made sovereign, was made such upon conditions; that all
conditions or covenants making a sovereign being made, are void; whence
it must follow that, the Decemviri being made, were ever after the
lawful government of Rome, and that it was unlawful for the Commonwealth
of Rome to depose the Decemvirs; as also that Cicero, if he wrote
otherwise out of his commonwealth, did not write out of nature. But to
come to others that see more of this balance.
You have Aristotle full of it in divers places, especially where he
says, that “immoderate wealth, as where one man or the few have greater
possessions than the equality or the frame of the commonwealth will
bear, is an occasion of sedition, which ends for the greater part in
monarchy and that for this cause the ostracism has been received in
divers places, as in Argos and Athens. But that it were better to
prevent the growth in the beginning, than, when it has got head, to seek
the remedy of such an evil.”
Machiavel has missed it very narrowly and more dangerously for not fully
perceiving that if a commonwealth be galled by the gentry it is by their
overbalance, he speaks of the gentry as hostile to popular governments,
and of popular governments as hostile to the gentry; and makes us
believe that the people in such are so enraged against them, that where
they meet a gentleman they kill him: which can never be proved by any
one example, unless in civil war, seeing that even in Switzerland the
gentry are not only safe, but in honor. But the balance, as I have laid
it down, though unseen by Machiavel, is that which interprets him, and
that which he confirms by his judgment in many others as well as in
this place, where he concludes, “That he who will go about to make a
commonwealth where there be many gentlemen, unless he first destroys
them, undertakes an impossibility. And that he who goes about to
introduce monarchy where the condition of the people is equal, shall
never bring it to pass, unless he cull out such of them as are the most
turbulent and ambitious, and make them gentlemen or noblemen, not in
name but in effect; that is, by enriching them with lands, castles, and
treasures, that may gain them power among the rest, and bring in the
rest to dependence upon themselves, to the end that, they maintaining
their ambition by the prince, the prince may maintain his power by
them.”
Wherefore, as in this place I agree with Machiavel, that a nobility
or gentry, overbalancing a popular government, is the utter bane and
destruction of it; so I shall show in another, that a nobility or
gentry, in a popular government, not overbalancing it, is the very life
and soul of it.
By what has been said, it should seem that we may lay aside further
disputes of the public sword, or of the right of the militia; which, be
the government what it will, or let it change how it can, is inseparable
from the overbalance in dominion: nor, if otherwise stated by the law
or custom (as in the Commonwealth of Rome, where the people having the
sword, the nobility came to have the overbalance), avails it to
any other end than destruction. For as a building swaying from the
foundation must fall, so it fares with the law swaying from reason, and
the militia from the balance of dominion. And thus much for the balance
of national or domestic empire, which is in dominion.
The balance of foreign or provincial empire is of a contrary nature. A
man may as well say that it is unlawful for him who has made a fair and
honest purchase to have tenants, as for a government that has made a
just progress and enlargement of itself to have provinces. But how a
province may be justly acquired appertains to another place. In this
I am to show no more than how or upon what kind of balance it is to be
held; in order whereto I shall first show upon what kind of balance
it is not to be held. It has been said, that national or independent
empire, of what kind soever, is to be exercised by them that have
the proper balance of dominion in the nation; wherefore provincial or
dependent empire is not to be exercised by them that have the balance of
dominion in the province, because that would bring the government
from provincial and dependent, to national and independent. Absolute
monarchy, as that of the Turks, neither plants its people at home nor
abroad, otherwise than as tenants for life or at will; wherefore its
national and provincial government is all one. But in governments that
admit the citizen or subject to dominion in lands, the richest are they
that share most of the power at home; whereas the richest among
the provincials, though native subjects, or citizens that have been
transplanted, are least admitted to the government abroad; for men, like
flowers or roots being transplanted, take after the soil wherein they
grow. Wherefore the Commonwealth of Rome, by planting colonies of its
citizens within the bounds of Italy, took the best way of propagating
itself, and naturalizing the country; whereas if it had planted such
colonies without the bounds of Italy it would have alienated the
citizens, and given a root to liberty abroad, that might have sprung up
foreign or savage, and hostile to her: wherefore it never made any such
dispersion of itself and its strength, till it was under the yoke of
the Emperors, who, disburdening themselves of the people, as having less
apprehension of what they could do abroad than at home, took a contrary
course.
The Mamelukes (which, till any man show me the contrary, I shall presume
to have been a commonwealth consisting of an army, whereof the common
soldier was the people, the commissioned officer the Senate, and the
general the prince) were foreigners, and by nation Circassians, that
governed Egypt; wherefore these never durst plant themselves upon
dominion, which growing naturally up into the national interest, must
have dissolved the foreign yoke in that province.
The like in some sort may be said of Venice, the government whereof is
usually mistaken; for Venice, though it does not take in the people,
never excluded them. This commonwealth, the orders whereof are the
most democratical or popular of all others, in regard of the exquisite
rotation of the Senate, at the first institution took in the whole
people; they that now live under the government without participation of
it, are such as have since either voluntarily chosen so to do, or
were subdued by arms. Wherefore the subject of Venice is governed by
provinces, and the balance of dominion not standing, as has been said,
with provincial government; as the Mamelukes durst not cast their
government upon this balance in their provinces, lest the national
interest should have rooted out the foreign, so neither dare the
Venetians take in their subjects upon this balance, lest the foreign
interest should root out the national (which is that of the 3,000
now governing), and by diffusing the commonwealth throughout her
territories, lose the advantage of her situation, by which in great
part it subsists. And such also is the government of the Spaniard in the
Indies, to which he deputes natives of his own country, not admitting
the creoles to the government of those provinces, though descended from
Spaniards.
But if a prince or a commonwealth may hold a territory that is foreign
in this, it may be asked why he may not hold one that is native in
the like manner? To which I answer, because he can hold a foreign by a
native territory, but not a native by a foreign; and as hitherto I
have shown what is not the provincial balance, so by this answer it may
appear what it is, namely, the overbalance of a native territory to
a foreign; for as one country balances itself by the distribution
of property according to the proportion of the same, so one country
overbalances another by advantage of divers kinds. For example, the
Commonwealth of Rome overbalanced her provinces by the vigor of a
more excellent government opposed to a crazier. Or by a more exquisite
militia opposed to one inferior in courage or discipline. The like was
that of the Mamelukes, being a hardy people, to the Egyptians, that were
a soft one. And the balance of situation is in this kind of wonderful
effect; seeing the King of Denmark, being none of the most potent
princes, is able at the Sound to take toll of the greatest; and as
this King, by the advantage of the land, can make the sea tributary, so
Venice, by the advantage of the sea, in whose arms she is impregnable,
can make the land to feed her gulf. For the colonies in the Indies,
they are yet babes that cannot live without sucking the breasts of their
mother cities, but such as I mistake if when they come of age they do
not wean themselves; which causes me to wonder at princes that delight
to be exhausted in that way. And so much for the principles of power,
whether national or provincial, domestic or foreign; being such as are
external, and founded in the goods of fortune.
I come to the principles of authority, which are internal, and founded
upon the goods of the mind. These the legislator that can unite in his
government with those of fortune, comes nearest to the work of God,
whose government consists of heaven and earth; which was said by Plato,
though in different words, as, when princes should be philosophers, or
philosophers princes, the world would be happy. And says Solomon: “There
is an evil which I have seen under the sun, which proceeds from the
ruler (enimvero neque nobilem, neque ingenuum, nec libertinum quidem
armis praeponere, regia utilitas est). Folly is set in great dignity,
and the rich (either in virtue and wisdom, in the goods of the mind,
or those of fortune upon that balance which gives them a sense of the
national interest) sit in low places. I have seen servants upon horses,
and princes walking as servants upon the earth.” Sad complaints, that
the principles of power and of authority, the goods of the mind and
of fortune, do not meet and twine in the wreath or crown of empire!
Wherefore, if we have anything of piety or of prudence, let us raise
ourselves out of the mire of private interest to the contemplation of
virtue, and put a hand to the removal of “this evil from under the sun;”
this evil against which no government that is not secured can be good;
this evil from which the government that is secure must be perfect.
Solomon tells us that the cause of it is from the ruler, from those
principles of power, which, balanced upon earthly trash, exclude the
heavenly treasures of virtue, and that influence of it upon government
which is authority. We have wandered the earth to find out the balance
of power; but to find out that of authority we must ascend, as I said,
nearer heaven, or to the image of God, which is the soul of man.
The soul of man (whose life or motion is perpetual contemplation or
thought) is the mistress of two potent rivals, the one reason, the other
passion, that are in continual suit; and, according as she gives up her
will to these or either of them, is the felicity or misery which man
partakes in this mortal life.
For, as whatever was passion in the contemplation of a man, being
brought forth by his will into action, is vice and the bondage of sin;
so whatever was reason in the contemplation of a man, being brought
forth by his will into action, is virtue and the freedom of soul.
Again, as those actions of a man that were sin acquire to himself
repentance or shame, and affect others with scorn or pity, so those
actions of a man that are virtue acquire to himself honor, and upon
others authority.
Now government is no other than the soul of a nation or city: wherefore
that which was reason in the debate of a commonwealth being brought
forth by the result, must be virtue; and forasmuch as the soul of a
city or nation is the sovereign power, her virtue must be law. But the
government whose law is virtue, and whose virtue is law, is the same
whose empire is authority, and whose authority is empire.
Again, if the liberty of a man consists in the empire of his reason, the
absence whereof would betray him to the bondage of his passions, then
the liberty of a commonwealth consists in the empire of her laws, the
absence whereof would betray her to the lust of tyrants. And these I
conceive to be the principles upon which Aristotle and Livy (injuriously
accused by Leviathan for not writing out of nature) have grounded their
assertion, “that a commonwealth is an empire of laws and not of men.”
But they must not carry it so. “For,” says he, “the liberty whereof
there is so frequent and honorable mention in the histories and
philosophy of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and the writings and
discourses of those that from them have received all their learning in
the politics, is not the liberty of particular men, but the liberty
of the commonwealth.” He might as well have said that the estates of
particular men in a commonwealth are not the riches of particular men,
but the riches of the commonwealth; for equality of estates causes
equality of power, and equality of power is the liberty, not only of the
commonwealth, but of every man.
But sure a man would never be thus irreverent with the greatest authors,
and positive against all antiquity without some certain demonstration of
truth--and what is it? Why, “there is written on the turrets of the city
of Lucca in great characters at this day the word LIBERTAS; yet no man
can thence infer that a particular man has more liberty or immunity from
the service of the commonwealth there than in Constantinople. Whether
a commonwealth be monarchical or popular the freedom is the same.” The
mountain has brought forth, and we have a little equivocation! For to
say that a Lucchese has no more liberty or immunity from the laws of
Lucca than a Turk has from those of Constantinople; and to say that a
Lucchese has no more liberty or immunity by the laws of Lucca, than a
Turk has by those of Constantinople, are pretty different speeches. The
first may be said of all governments alike; the second scarce of any
two; much less of these, seeing it is known that, whereas the greatest
Bashaw is a tenant, as well of his head as of his estate, at the will
of his lord, the meanest Lucchese that has land is a freeholder of
both, and not to be controlled but by the law, and that framed by every
private man to no other end (or they may thank themselves) than to
protect the liberty of every private man, which by that means comes to
be the liberty of the commonwealth.
But seeing they that make the laws in commonwealths are but men, the
main question seems to be, how a commonwealth comes to be an empire of
laws, and not of men? or how the debate or result of a commonwealth is
so sure to be according to reason; seeing they who debate, and they who
resolve, be but men? “And as often as reason is against a man, so often
will a man be against reason.”
This is thought to be a shrewd saying, but will do no harm; for be it so
that reason is nothing but interest, there be divers interests, and so
divers reasons.
As first, there is private reason, which is the interest of a private
man.
Secondly, there is reason of state, which is the interest (or error,
as was said by Solomon) of the ruler or rulers, that is to say, of the
prince, of the nobility, or of the people.
Thirdly there is that reason, which is the interest of mankind, or of
the whole. “Now if we see even in those natural agents that want sense,
that as in themselves they have a law which directs them in the means
whereby they tend to their own perfection, so likewise that another law
there is, which touches them as they are sociable parts united into one
body, a law which binds them each to serve to others’ good, and all to
prefer the good of the whole, before whatsoever their own particular; as
when stones, or heavy things, forsake their ordinary wont or centre,
and fly upward, as if they heard themselves commanded to let go the good
they privately wish, and to relieve the present distress of nature in
common.” There is a common right, law of nature, or interest of the
whole, which is more excellent, and so acknowledged to be by the agents
themselves, than the right or interest of the parts only. “Wherefore,
though it may be truly said that the creatures are naturally carried
forth to their proper utility or profit, that ought not to be taken
in too general a sense; seeing divers of them abstain from their own
profit, either in regard of those of the same kind, or at least of their
young.”
Mankind then must either be less just than the creature, or acknowledge
also his common interest to be common right. And if reason be nothing
else but interest, and the interest of mankind be the right interest,
then the reason of mankind must be right reason. Now compute well; for
if the interest of popular government come the nearest to the interest
of mankind, then the reason of popular government must come the nearest
to right reason.
But it may be said that the difficulty remains yet; for be the interest
of popular government right reason, a man does not look upon reason as
it is right or wrong in itself, but as it makes for him or against him.
Wherefore, unless you can show such orders of a government as, like
those of God in nature, shall be able to constrain this or that creature
to shake off that inclination which is more peculiar to it, and take up
that which regards the common good or interest, all this is to no more
end than to persuade every man in a popular government not to carve
himself of that which he desires most, but to be mannerly at the
public table, and give the best from himself to decency and the common
interest. But that such orders may be established as may, nay must, give
the upper hand in all cases to common right or interest, notwithstanding
the nearness of that which sticks to every man in private, and this in
a way of equal certainty and facility, is known even to girls, being no
other than those that are of common practice with them in divers cases.
For example, two of them have a cake yet undivided, which was given
between them: that each of them therefore might have that which is due,
“Divide,” says one to the other, “and I will choose; or let me divide,
and you shall choose.” If this be but once agreed upon, it is enough;
for the divident, dividing unequally, loses, in regard that the other
takes the better half. Wherefore she divides equally, and so both have
right. “Oh, the depth of the wisdom of God.” And yet “by the mouths of
babes and sucklings has He set forth His strength;” that which great
philosophers are disputing upon in vain is brought to light by two
harmless girls, even the whole mystery of a commonwealth, which lies
only in dividing and choosing. Nor has God (if his works in nature be
understood) left so much to mankind to dispute upon as who shall divide
and who choose, but distributed them forever into two orders, whereof
the one has the natural right of dividing, and the other of choosing.
For example: A commonwealth is but a civil society of men: let us take
any number of men (as twenty) and immediately make a commonwealth.
Twenty men (if they be not all idiots, perhaps if they be) can never
come so together but there will be such a difference in them that about
a third will be wiser, or at least less foolish than all the rest; these
upon acquaintance, though it be but small, will be discovered, and, as
stags that have the largest heads, lead the herd; for while the six,
discoursing and arguing one with another, show the eminence of their
parts, the fourteen discover things that they never thought on; or are
cleared in divers truths which had formerly perplexed them. Wherefore,
in matter of common concernment, difficulty, or danger, they hang upon
their lips, as children upon their fathers; and the influence thus
acquired by the six, the eminence of whose parts are found to be a stay
and comfort to the fourteen, is the authority of the fathers. Wherefore
this can be no other than a natural aristocracy diffused by God
throughout the whole body of mankind to this end and purpose; and
therefore such as the people have not only a natural but a positive
obligation to make use of as their guides; as where the people of Israel
are commanded to “take wise men, and understanding, and known among
their tribes, to be made rulers over them.” The six then approved of,
as in the present case, are the senate, not by hereditary right, or in
regard of the greatness of their estates only, which would tend to
such power as might force or draw the people, but by election for their
excellent parts, which tends to the advancement of the influence of
their virtue or authority that leads the people. Wherefore the office of
the senate is not to be commanders, but counsellors, of the people; and
that which is proper to counsellors is first to debate, and afterward
to give advice in the business whereupon they have debated, whence the
decrees of the senate are never laws, nor so called; and these being
maturely framed, it is their duty to propose in the case to the people.
Wherefore the senate is no more than the debate of the commonwealth. But
to debate is to discern or put a difference between things that, being
alike, are not the same; or it is separating and weighing this reason
against that, and that reason against this, which is dividing.
The senate then having divided, who shall choose? Ask the girls: for if
she that divided must have chosen also, it had been little worse for
the other in case she had not divided at all, but kept the whole cake to
herself, in regard that being to choose, too, she divided accordingly.
Wherefore if the senate have any further power than to divide, the
commonwealth can never be equal. But in a commonwealth consisting of
a single council, there is no other to choose than that which divided;
whence it is, that such a council fails not to scramble--that is, to
be factious, there being no other dividing of the cake in that case but
among themselves.
Nor is there any remedy but to have another council to choose. The
wisdom of the few may be the light of mankind; but the interest of
the few is not the profit of mankind nor of a commonwealth. Wherefore,
seeing we have granted interest to be reason, they must not choose lest
it put out their light. But as the council dividing consists of the
wisdom of the commonwealth, so the assembly or council choosing should
consist of the interest of the commonwealth: as the wisdom of the
commonwealth is in the aristocracy, so the interest of the commonwealth
is in the whole body of the people. And whereas this, in case the
commonwealth consist of a whole nation, is too unwieldy a body to be
assembled, this council is to consist of such a representative as may be
equal, and so constituted, as can never contract any other interest
than that of the whole people; the manner whereof, being such as is best
shown by exemplification, I remit to the model. But in the present case,
the six dividing, and the fourteen choosing, must of necessity take in
the whole interest of the twenty.
Dividing and choosing, in the language of a commonwealth, is debating
and resolving; and whatsoever, upon debate of the senate, is proposed
to the people, and resolved by them, is enacted by the authority of the
fathers, and by the power of the people, which concurring, make a law.
But the law being made, says Leviathan, “is but words and paper without
the hands and swords of men;” wherefore as these two orders of a
commonwealth, namely, the senate and the people, are legislative, so of
necessity there must be a third to be executive of the laws made, and
this is the magistracy. In which order, with the rest being wrought up
by art, the commonwealth consists of “the senate proposing, the people
resolving, and the magistracy executing,” whereby partaking of the
aristocracy as in the senate, of the democracy as in the people, and of
monarchy as in the magistracy, it is complete. Now there being no other
commonwealth but this in art or nature, it is no wonder if Machiavel
has shown us that the ancients held this only to be good; but it seems
strange to me that they should hold that there could be any other, for
if there be such a thing as pure monarchy, yet that there should be such
a one as pure aristocracy or pure democracy is not in my understanding.
But the magistracy, both in number and function, is different in
different commonwealths. Nevertheless there is one condition of it that
must be the same in every one, or it dissolves the commonwealth where it
is wanting. And this is no less than that, as the hand of the magistrate
is the executive power of the law, so the head of the magistrate is
answerable to the people, that his execution be according to the law; by
which Leviathan may see that the hand or sword that executes the law is
in it and not above it.
Now whether I have rightly transcribed these principles of a
commonwealth out of nature, I shall appeal to God and to the world--to
God in the fabric of the Commonwealth of Israel, and to the world in
the universal series of ancient prudence. But in regard the same
commonwealths will be opened at large in the Council of legislators, I
shall touch them for the present but slightly, beginning with that of
Israel.
The Commonwealth of Israel consisted of the Senate, the people, and the
magistracy.
The people by their first division, which was genealogical, were
contained under their thirteen tribes, houses, or families; whereof the
first-born in each was prince of his tribe, and had the leading of it:
the tribe of Levi only, being set apart to serve at the altar, had no
other prince but the high-priest. In their second division they were
divided locally by their agrarian, or the distribution of the land
of Canaan to them by lot, the tithe of all remaining to Levi; whence,
according to their local division, the tribes are reckoned but twelve.
The assemblies of the people thus divided were methodically gathered by
trumpets to the congregation: which was, it should seem, of two sorts.
For if it were called with one trumpet only, the princes of the tribes
and the elders only assembled; but if it were called with two, the whole
people gathered themselves to the congregation, for so it is rendered
by the English; but in the Greek it is called Ecclesia, or the Church of
God, and by the Talmudist the great “Synagogue.” The word Ecclesia
was also anciently and properly used for the civil congregations, or
assemblies of the people in Athens, Lacedaemon, and Ephesus, where it
is so called in Scripture, though it be otherwise rendered by the
translators, not much as I conceive to their commendation, seeing by
that means they have lost us a good lesson, the apostles borrowing that
name for their spiritual congregations, to the end that we might
see they intended the government of the church to be democratical or
popular, as is also plain in the rest of their constitutions.
The church or congregation of the people of Israel assembled in a
military manner, and had the result of the commonwealth, or the power of
confirming all their laws, though proposed even by God himself; as
where they make him king, and where they reject or depose him as civil
magistrate, and elect Saul. It is manifest that he gives no such example
to a legislator in a popular government as to deny or evade the power of
the people, which were a contradiction; but though he deservedly blames
the ingratitude of the people in that action, he commands Samuel, being
next under himself supreme magistrate, “to hearken to their voice”
(for where the suffrage of the people goes for nothing, it is no
commonwealth), and comforts him, saying, “They have not rejected thee,
but they have rejected me that I should not reign over them.” But to
reject him that he should not reign over them, was as civil magistrate
to depose him. The power therefore which the people had to depose even
God himself as he was civil magistrate, leaves little doubt but that
they had power to have rejected any of those laws confirmed by them
throughout the Scripture, which, to omit the several parcels, are
generally contained under two heads: those that were made by covenant
with the people in the land of Moab, and those which were made by
covenant with the people in Horeb; which two, I think, amount to the
whole body of the Israelitish laws.
But if all and every one of the laws of Israel being proposed by God,
were no otherwise enacted than by covenant with the people, then that
only which was resolved by the people of Israel was their law; and so
the result of that commonwealth was in the people. Nor had the people
the result only in matter of law, but the power in some cases of
judicature; as also the right of levying war, cognizance in matter
of religion, and the election of their magistrates, as the judge or
dictator, the king, the prince: which functions were exercised by the
Synagoga magna, or Congregation of Israel, not always in one manner, for
sometimes they were performed by the suffrage of the people, viva voce,
sometimes by the lot only, and at others by the ballot, or by a mixture
of the lot with the suffrage, as in the case of Eldad and Medad, which I
shall open with the Senate.
The Senate of Israel, called in the old Testament the Seventy Elders,
and in the New the Sanhedrim (which word is usually translated “the
Council”), was appointed by God, and consisted of seventy elders besides
Moses, which were at first elected by the people, but in what manner is
rather intimated than shown. Nevertheless, because I cannot otherwise
understand the passage concerning Eldad and Medad, of whom it is said
“that they were of them that were written, but went not up to the
tabernacle,” then with the Talmudists I conceive that Eldad and Medad
had the suffrage of the tribes, and so were written as competitors for
magistracy; but coming afterward to the lot, failed of it, and therefore
went not up to the tabernacle, or place of confirmation by God, or to
the session-house of the Senate, with the Seventy upon whom the lot fell
to be senators; for the session-house of the Sanhedrim was first in the
court of the tabernacle, and afterward in that of the Temple, where it
came to be called the stone chamber or pavement. If this were the ballot
of Israel, that of Venice is the same transposed; for in Venice the
competitor is chosen as it were by the lot, in regard that the electors
are so made, and the magistrate is chosen by the “suffrage of the great
Council or assembly of the people.” But the Sanhedrim of Israel being
thus constituted, Moses, for his time, and after him his successor sat
in the midst of it as prince or archon, and at his left hand the orator
or father of the Senate; the rest, or the bench, coming round with
either horn like a crescent, had a scribe attending upon the tip of it.
This Senate, in regard the legislator of Israel was infallible, and the
laws given by God such as were not fit to be altered by men, is much
different in the exercise of their power from all other senates, except
that of the Areopagus in Athens, which also was little more than a
supreme judicatory, for it will hardly, as I conceive, be found that
the Sanhedrim proposed to the people till the return of the children of
Israel out of captivity under Esdras, at which time there was a new law
made--namely, for a kind of excommunication, or rather banishment, which
had never been before in Israel. Nevertheless it is not to be thought
that the Sanhedrim had not always that right, which from the time of
Esdras is more frequently exercised, of proposing to the people, but
that they forebore it in regard of the fulness and infallibility of the
law already made, whereby it was needless. Wherefore the function
of this Council, which is very rare in a senate, was executive, and
consisted in the administration of the law made; and whereas the Council
itself is often understood in Scripture by the priest and the Levite,
there is no more in that save only that the priests and the Levites,
who otherwise had no power at all, being in the younger years of this
commonwealth, those that were best studied in the laws were the most
frequently elected into the Sanhedrim. For the courts, consisting of
three-and-twenty elders sitting in the gates of every city, and the
triumvirates of judges constituted almost in every village, which were
parts of the executive magistracy subordinate to the Sanhedrim, I shall
take them at better leisure, and in the larger discourse; but these
being that part of this commonwealth which was instituted by Moses upon
the advice of Jethro the priest of Midian (as I conceive a heathen), are
to me a sufficient warrant even from God himself, who confirmed them,
to make further use of human prudence, wherever I find it bearing a
testimony to itself, whether in heathen commonwealths or others; and the
rather, because so it is, that we who have the holy Scriptures, and in
them the original of a commonwealth, made by the same hand that made
the world, are either altogether blind or negligent of it; while the
heathens have all written theirs, as if they had had no other copy; as,
to be more brief in the present account of that which you shall have
more at large hereafter:
Athens consisted of the Senate of the Bean proposing, of the Church or
Assembly of the people resolving, and too often debating, which was the
ruin of it; as also of the Senate of the Areopagus, the nine archons,
with divers other magistrates, executing.
Lacedaemon consisted of the Senate proposing, of the Church or
congregation of the people resolving only, and never debating, which was
the long life of it; and of the two kings, the court of the ephors, with
divers other magistrates, executing.
Carthage consisted of the Senate proposing and sometimes resolving too,
of the people resolving and sometimes debating too, for which fault she
was reprehended by Aristotle; and she had her suffetes, and her hundred
men, with other magistrates, executing.
Rome consisted of the Senate proposing, the concio or people resolving,
and too often debating, which caused her storms; as also of the consuls,
censors, aediles, tribunes, praetors, quaestors, and other magistrates,
executing.
Venice consists of the Senate, or pregati, proposing, and sometimes
resolving too, of the great Council or Assembly of the people, in whom
the result is constitutively; as also of the doge, the signory, the
censors, the dieci, the quazancies, and other magistrates, executing.
The proceeding of the Commonwealths of Switzerland and Holland is of a
like nature, though after a more obscure manner; for the sovereignties,
whether cantons, provinces, or cities, which are the people, send
their deputies, commissioned and instructed by themselves (wherein they
reserve the result in their own power), to the provincial or general
convention, or Senate, where the deputies debate, but have no other
power of result than what was conferred upon them by the people, or
is further conferred by the same upon further occasion. And for
the executive part they have magistrates or judges in every canton,
province, or city, besides those which are more public, and relate to
the league, as for adjusting controversies between one canton, province,
or city and another, or the like between such persons as are not of the
same canton, province, or city.
But that we may observe a little further how the heathen politicians
have written, not only out of nature, but as it were out of Scripture:
as in the Commonwealth of Israel, God is said to have been king, so
the commonwealth where the law is king, is said by Aristotle to be “the
kingdom of God.” And where by the lusts or passions of men a power is
set above that of the law deriving from reason, which is the dictate of
God, God in that sense is rejected or deposed that he should not reign
over them, as he was in Israel. And yet Leviathan will have it that “by
reading of these Greek and Latin [he might as well in this sense have
said Hebrew] authors, young men, and all others that are unprovided
of the antidote of solid reason, receiving a strong and delightful
impression of the great exploits of war achieved by the conductors
of their armies, receive withal a pleasing idea of all they have done
besides, and imagine their great prosperity not to have proceeded from
the emulation of particular men, but from the virtue of their popular
form of government, not considering the frequent seditions and civil
wars produced by the imperfection of their polity.” Where, first,
the blame he lays to the heathen authors, is in his sense laid to the
Scripture; and whereas he holds them to be young men, or men of no
antidote that are of like opinions, it should seem that Machiavel,
the sole retriever of this ancient prudence, is to his solid reason a
beardless boy that has newly read Livy. And how solid his reason is, may
appear where he grants the great prosperity of ancient commonwealths,
which is to give up the controversy. For such an effect must have some
adequate cause, which to evade he insinuates that it was nothing else
but the emulation of particular men, as if so great an emulation could
have been generated without as great virtue, so great virtue without
the best education, and best education without the best law, or the best
laws any otherwise than by the excellency of their polity.
But if some of these commonwealths, as being less perfect in their
polity than others, have been more seditious, it is not more an argument
of the infirmity of this or that commonwealth in particular, than of the
excellency of that kind of polity in general, which if they, that have
not altogether reached, have nevertheless had greater prosperity, what
would befall them that should reach?
In answer to which question let me invite Leviathan, who of all other
governments gives the advantage to monarchy for perfection, to a better
disquisition of it by these three assertions.
The first, that the perfection of government lies upon such a libration
in the frame of it, that no man or men in or under it can have the
interest, or, having the interest, can have the power to disturb it with
sedition.
The second, that monarchy, reaching the perfection of the kind, reaches
not to the perfection of government, but must have some dangerous flaw
in it.
The third, that popular government, reaching the perfection of the kind,
reaches the perfection of government, and has no flaw in it.
The first assertion requires no proof.
For the proof of the second, monarchy, as has been shown, is of two
kinds: the one by arms, the other by a nobility and there is no
other kind in art or nature; for if there have ‘been anciently some
governments called kingdoms, as one of the Goths in Spain, and another
of the Vandals in Africa, where the King ruled without a nobility and
by a council of the people only it is expressly said by the authors that
mention them that the, kings were but the captains, and that the people
not only gave them laws, but deposed them as often as they pleased.
Nor is it possible in reason that it should be otherwise in like cases;
wherefore these were either no monarchies, or had greater flaws in them
than any other.
But for a monarchy by arms, as that of the Turk (which, of all models
that ever were, comes up to the perfection of the kind), it is not in
the wit or power of man to cure it of this dangerous flaw, that the
Janizaries have frequent interest and perpetual power to raise sedition,
and to tear the magistrate, even the prince himself, in pieces.
Therefore the monarchy of Turkey is no perfect government.
And for a monarchy by nobility, as of late in Oceana (which of all other
models, before the declination of it, came up to the perfection in
that kind), it was not in the power or wit of man to cure it of that
dangerous flaw; that the nobility had frequent interest and perpetual
power by their retainers and tenants to raise sedition; and (whereas the
Janizaries occasion this kind of calamity no sooner than they make an
end of it) to levy a lasting war, to the vast effusion of blood, and
that even upon occasions wherein the people, but for their dependence
upon their lords, had no concernment, as in the feud of the Red and
White. The like has been frequent in Spain, France, Germany, and other
monarchies of this kind; wherefore monarchy by a nobility is no perfect
government.
For the proof of the third assertion: Leviathan yields it to me, that
there is no other commonwealth but monarchical or popular; wherefore
if no monarchy be a perfect government, then either there is no perfect
government, or it must be popular, for which kind of constitution I have
something more to say than Leviathan has said or ever will be able to
say for monarchy. As,
First, that it is the government that was never conquered by any
monarch, from the beginning of the world to this day, for if the
commonwealths of Greece came under the yoke of the Kings of Macedon,
they were first broken by themselves.
Secondly, that it is the government that has frequently led mighty
monarchs in triumph.
Thirdly, that it is the government, which, if it has been seditious, it
has not been so from any imperfection in the kind, but in the particular
constitution; which, wherever the like has happened, must have been
unequal.
Fourthly, that it is the government, which, if it has been anything
near equal, was never seditious; or let him show me what sedition has
happened in Lacedaemon or Venice.
Fifthly, that it is the government, which, attaining to perfect
equality, has such a libration in the frame of it, that no man living
can show which way any man or men, in or under it, can contract any such
interest or power as should be able to disturb the commonwealth with
sedition, wherefore an equal commonwealth is that only which is without
flaw and contains in it the full perfection of government. But to
return.
By what has been shown in reason and experience, it may appear, that
though commonwealths in general be governments of the senate proposing,
the people resolving, and the magistracy executing, yet some are not so
good at these orders as others, through some impediment or defect in
the frame, balance, or capacity of them, according to which they are of
divers kinds.
The first division of them is into such as are single, as Israel,
Athens, Lacedaemon, etc.; and such as are by leagues, as those of the
Achaeans, AEtolians, Lycians, Switz, and Hollanders.
The second (being Machiavel’s) is into such as are for preservation, as
Lacedaemon and Venice, and such as are for increase, as Athens and
Rome; in which I can see no more than that the former takes in no more
citizens than are necessary for defence, and the latter so many as are
capable of increase.
The third division (unseen hitherto) is into equal and Unequal, and this
is the main point, especially as to domestic peace and tranquillity; for
to make a commonwealth unequal, is to divide it into parties, which sets
them at perpetual variance, the one party endeavoring to preserve their
eminence and inequality and the other to attain to equality; whence
the people of Rome derived their perpetual strife with the nobility and
Senate. But in an equal commonwealth there can be no more strife than
there can be overbalance in equal weights; wherefore the Commonwealth
of Venice, being that which of all others is the most equal in the
constitution, is that wherein there never happened any strife between
the Senate and the people.
An equal commonwealth is such a one as is equal both in the balance or
foundation, and in the superstructure; that is to say, in her agrarian
law and in her rotation.
An equal agrarian is a perpetual law, establishing and preserving the
balance of dominion by such a distribution, that no one man or number of
men, within the compass of the few or aristocracy, can come to overpower
the whole people by their possessions in lands.
As the agrarian answers to the foundation, so does rotation to the
superstructures.
Equal rotation is equal vicissitude in government, or succession
to magistracy conferred for such convenient terms, enjoying equal
vacations, as take in the whole body by parts, succeeding others,
through the free election or suffrage of the people.
The contrary, whereunto is prolongation of magistracy, which, trashing
the wheel of rotation, destroys the life or natural motion of a
commonwealth.
The election or suffrage of the people is most free, where it is made or
given in such a manner that it can neither oblige nor disoblige another,
nor through fear of an enemy, or bashfulness toward a friend, impair a
man’s liberty.
Wherefore, says Cicero, the tablet or ballot of the people of Rome (who
gave their votes by throwing tablets or little pieces of wood secretly
into urns marked for the negative or affirmative) was a welcome
constitution to the people, as that which, not impairing the assurance
of their brows, increased the freedom of their judgment. I have not
stood upon a more particular description of this ballot, because that of
Venice exemplified in the model is of all others the most perfect.
An equal commonwealth (by that which has been said) is a government
established upon an equal agrarian, arising into the superstructures or
three orders, the Senate debating and proposing, the people resolving,
and the magistracy executing, by an equal rotation through the suffrage
of the people given by the ballot. For though rotation may be without
the ballot, and the ballot without rotation, yet the ballot not only as
to the ensuing model includes both, but is by far the most equal
way; for which cause under the name of the ballot I shall hereafter
understand both that and rotation too.
Now having reasoned the principles of an equal commonwealth, I should
come to give an instance of such a one in experience, if I could find
it; but if this work be of any value, it lies in that it is the first
example of a commonwealth that is perfectly equal. For Venice, though
it comes the nearest, yet is a commonwealth for preservation; and such
a one, considering the paucity of citizens taken in, and the number
not taken in, is externally unequal; and though every commonwealth that
holds provinces must in that regard be such, yet not to that degree.
Nevertheless, Venice internally, and for her capacity, is by far the
most equal, though it has not, in my judgment, arrived at the full
perfection of equality; both because her laws supplying the defect of
an agrarian are not so clear nor effectual at the foundation, nor
her superstructures, by the virtue of her ballot or rotation, exactly
librated; in regard that through the paucity of her citizens her
greater magistracies are continually wheeled through a few hands, as is
confessed by Janotti, where he says, that if a gentleman comes once
to be Savio di terra ferma, it seldom happens that he fails from
thenceforward to be adorned with some one of the greater magistracies,
as Savi di mare, Savi di terra ferma, Savi Grandi, counsellors, those
of the decemvirate or dictatorian council, the aurogatori, or censors,
which require no vacation or interval. Wherefore if this in Venice, or
that in Lacedaemon, where the kings were hereditary, and the Senators
(though elected by the people) for life, cause no inequality (which is
hard to be conceived) in a commonwealth for preservation, or such a one
as consists of a few citizens; yet is it manifest that it would cause
a very great one in a commonwealth for increase, or consisting of the
many, which, by engrossing the magistracies in a few hands, would be
obstructed in their rotation.
But there be who say (and think it a strong objection) that, let a
commonwealth be as equal as you can imagine, two or three men when all
is done will govern it; and there is that in it which, notwithstanding
the pretended sufficiency of a popular State, amounts to a plain
confession of the imbecility of that policy, and of the prerogative of
monarchy; forasmuch as popular governments in difficult cases have had
recourse to dictatorian power, as in Rome.
To which I answer, that as truth is a spark to which objections are like
bellows, so in this respect our commonwealth shines; for the eminence
acquired by suffrage of the people in a commonwealth, especially if
it be popular and equal, can be ascended by no other steps than the
universal acknowledgment of virtue: and where men excel in virtue, the
commonwealth is stupid and unjust, if accordingly they do not excel in
authority. Wherefore this is both the advantage of virtue, which has her
due encouragement, and of the commonwealth, which has her due services.
These are the philosophers which Plato would have to be princes, the
princes which Solomon would have to be mounted, and their steeds are
those of authority, not empire; or, if they be buckled to the chariot of
empire, as that of the dictatorian power, like the chariot of the
sun, it is glorious for terms and vacations or intervals. And as a
commonwealth is a government of laws and not of men, so is this the
principality of virtue, and not of man; if that fail or set in one, it
rises in another who is created his immediate successor. And this takes
away that vanity from under the sun, which is an error proceeding more
or less from all other rulers under heaven but an equal commonwealth.
These things considered, it will be convenient in this place to speak a
word to such as go about to insinuate to the nobility or gentry a fear
of the people, or to the people a fear of the nobility or gentry; as if
their interests were destructive to each other. When indeed an army may
as well consist of soldiers without officers, or of officers without
soldiers, as a commonwealth, especially such a one as is capable of
greatness, of a people without a gentry, or of a gentry without a
people. Wherefore this, though not always so intended, as may appear
by Machiavel, who else would be guilty, is a pernicious error. There is
something first in the making of a commonwealth, then in the governing
of it, and last of all in the leading of its armies, which, though there
be great divines, great lawyers, great men in all professions, seems to
be peculiar only to the genius of a gentleman.
For so it is in the universal series of story, that if any man has
founded a commonwealth, he was first a gentleman. Moses had his
education by the daughter of Pharaoh; Theseus and Solon, of noble birth,
were held by the Athenians worthy to be kings; Lycurgus was of the royal
blood; Romulus and Numa princes; Brutus and Publicola patricians;
the Gracchi, that lost their lives for the people of Rome and the
restitution of that commonwealth, were the sons of a father adored with
two triumphs, and of Cornelia the daughter of Scipio, who being demanded
in marriage by King Ptolemy, disdained to become the Queen of Egypt. And
the most renowned Olphaus Megaletor, sole legislator, as you will see
anon, of the Commonwealth of Oceana, was derived from a noble family;
nor will it be any occasion of scruple in this case, that Leviathan
affirms the politics to be no ancienter than his book “De Cive.” Such
also as have got any fame in the civil government of a commonwealth, or
by the leading of its armies, have been gentlemen; for so in all other
respects were those plebeian magistrates elected by the people of Rome,
being of known descents and of equal virtues, except only that they were
excluded from the name by the usurpation of the patricians. Holland,
through this defect at home, has borrowed princes for generals, and
gentlemen of divers nations for commanders: and the Switzers, if they
have any defect in this kind, rather lend their people to the colors
of other princes, than make that noble use of them at home which should
assert the liberty of mankind. For where there is not a nobility to
hearten the people, they are slothful, regardless of the world, and of
the public interest of liberty, as even those of Rome had been without
their gentry: wherefore let the people embrace the gentry in peace, as
the light of their eyes; and in war, as the trophy of their arms; and if
Cornelia disdained to be Queen of Egypt, if a Roman consul looked down
from his tribunal upon the greatest king, let the nobility love and
cherish the people that afford them a throne so much higher in a
commonwealth, in the acknowledgment of their virtue, than the crowns of
monarchs.
But if the equality of a commonwealth consist in the equality first
of the agrarian, and next of the rotation, then the inequality of a
commonwealth must consist in the absence or inequality of the agrarian,
or of the rotation, or of both.