OF THOSE THINGS THAT WEAKEN, OR TEND TO
THE DISSOLUTION OF A COMMONWEALTH.
[Sidenote: Dissolution of commonwealths proceedeth from their imperfect
institution.]
Though nothing can be immortal, which mortals make; yet, if men had the
use of reason they pretend to, their commonwealths might be secured, at
least from perishing by internal diseases. For by the nature of their
institution, they are designed to live, as long as mankind, or as the
laws of nature, or as justice itself, which gives them life. Therefore
when they come to be dissolved, not by external violence, but intestine
disorder, the fault is not in men, as they are the _matter_; but as they
are the _makers_, and orderers of them. For men, as they become at last
weary of irregular jostling, and hewing one another, and desire with all
their hearts, to conform themselves into one firm and lasting edifice:
so for want, both of the art of making fit laws, to square their actions
by, and also of humility, and patience, to suffer the rude and
cumbersome points of their present greatness to be taken off, they
cannot without the help of a very able architect, be compiled into any
other than a crazy building, such as hardly lasting out their own time,
must assuredly fall upon the heads of their posterity.
Amongst the _infirmities_ therefore of a commonwealth, I will reckon in
the first place, those that arise from an imperfect institution, and
resemble the diseases of a natural body, which proceed from a defectuous
procreation.
[Sidenote: Want of absolute power.]
Of which, this is one, _that a man to obtain a kingdom, is sometimes
content with less power, than to the peace, and defence of the
commonwealth is necessarily required_. From whence it cometh to pass,
that when the exercise of the power laid by, is for the public safety to
be resumed, it hath the resemblance of an unjust act; which disposeth
great numbers of men, when occasion is presented, to rebel; in the same
manner as the bodies of children, gotten by diseased parents, are
subject either to untimely death, or to purge the ill quality, derived
from their vicious conception, by breaking out into biles and scabs. And
when kings deny themselves some such necessary power, it is not always,
though sometimes, out of ignorance of what is necessary to the office
they undertake; but many times out of a hope to recover the same again
at their pleasure. Wherein they reason not well; because such as will
hold them to their promises, shall be maintained against them by foreign
commonwealths; who in order to the good of their own subjects let slip
few occasions to _weaken_ the estate of their neighbours. So was Thomas
Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, supported against Henry the Second, by
the Pope; the subjection of ecclesiastics to the commonwealth, having
been dispensed with by William the Conqueror at his reception, when he
took an oath, not to infringe the liberty of the church. And so were the
barons, whose power was by William Rufus, to have their help in
transferring the succession from his elder brother to himself, increased
to a degree inconsistent with the sovereign power, maintained in their
rebellion against king John, by the French.
Nor does this happen in monarchy only. For whereas the style of the
ancient Roman commonwealth, was, _the senate and people of Rome_;
neither senate, nor people pretended to the whole power; which first
caused the seditions, of Tiberius Gracchus, Caius Gracchus, Lucius
Saturninus, and others; and afterwards the wars between the senate and
the people, under Marius and Sylla; and again under Pompey and Cæsar, to
the extinction of their democracy, and the setting up of monarchy.
The people of Athens bound themselves but from one only action; which
was, that no man on pain of death should propound the renewing of the
war for the island of Salamis; and yet thereby, if Solon had not caused
to be given out he was mad, and afterwards in gesture and habit of a
madman, and in verse, propounded it to the people that flocked about
him, they had had an enemy perpetually in readiness, even at the gates
of their city; such damage, or shifts, are all commonwealths forced to,
that have their power never so little limited.
[Sidenote: Private judgment of good and evil.]
In the second place, I observe the _diseases_ of a commonwealth, that
proceed from the poison of seditious doctrines, whereof one is, _That
every private man is judge of good and evil actions_. This is true in
the condition of mere nature, where there are no civil laws; and also
under civil government, in such cases as are not determined by the law.
But otherwise, it is manifest, that the measure of good and evil
actions, is the civil law; and the judge the legislator, who is always
representative of the commonwealth. From this false doctrine, men are
disposed to debate with themselves, and dispute the commands of the
commonwealth; and afterwards to obey, or disobey them, as in their
private judgments they shall think fit; whereby the commonwealth is
distracted and _weakened_.
[Sidenote: Erroneous conscience.]
Another doctrine repugnant to civil society, is, that _whatsoever a man
does against his conscience, is sin_; and it dependeth on the
presumption of making himself judge of good and evil. For a man’s
conscience, and his judgment is the same thing, and as the judgment, so
also the conscience may be erroneous. Therefore, though he that is
subject to no civil law, sinneth in all he does against his conscience,
because he has no other rule to follow but his own reason; yet it is not
so with him that lives in a commonwealth; because the law is the public
conscience, by which he hath already undertaken to be guided. Otherwise
in such diversity, as there is of private consciences, which are but
private opinions, the commonwealth must needs be distracted, and no man
dare to obey the sovereign power, further than it shall seem good in his
own eyes.
[Sidenote: Pretence of inspiration.]
It hath been also commonly taught, _that faith and sanctity, are not to
be attained by study and reason, but by supernatural inspiration, or
infusion_. Which granted, I see not why any man should render a reason
of his faith; or why every Christian should not be also a prophet; or
why any man should take the law of his country, rather than his own
inspiration, for the rule of his action. And thus we fall again in the
fault of taking upon us to judge of good and evil; or to make judges of
it, such private men as pretend to be supernaturally inspired, to the
dissolution of all civil government. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing
by those accidents, which guide us into the presence of them that speak
to us; which accidents are all contrived by God Almighty; and yet are
not supernatural, but only, for the great number of them that concur to
every effect, unobservable. Faith and sanctity, are indeed not very
frequent; but yet they are not miracles, but brought to pass by
education, discipline, correction, and other natural ways, by which God
worketh them in his elect, at such times as he thinketh fit. And these
three opinions, pernicious to peace and government, have in this part of
the world, proceeded chiefly from the tongues, and pens of unlearned
divines, who joining the words of Holy Scripture together, otherwise
than is agreeable to reason, do what they can, to make men think, that
sanctity and natural reason, cannot stand together.
[Sidenote: Subjecting the sovereign power to civil laws.]
A fourth opinion, repugnant to the nature of a commonwealth, is this,
_that he that hath the sovereign power is subject to the civil laws_. It
is true, that sovereigns are all subject to the laws of nature; because
such laws be divine, and cannot by any man, or commonwealth be
abrogated. But to those laws which the sovereign himself, that is, which
the commonwealth maketh, he is not subject. For to be subject to laws,
is to be subject to the commonwealth, that is to the sovereign
representative, that is to himself; which is not subjection, but freedom
from the laws. Which error, because it setteth the laws above the
sovereign, setteth also a judge above him, and a power to punish him;
which is to make a new sovereign; and again for the same reason a third,
to punish the second; and so continually without end, to the confusion,
and dissolution of the commonwealth.
[Sidenote: Attributing of absolute propriety to subjects.]
A fifth doctrine, that tendeth to the dissolution of a commonwealth, is,
_that every private man has an absolute propriety in his goods; such, as
excludeth the right of the sovereign_. Every man has indeed a propriety
that excludes the right of every other subject: and he has it only from
the sovereign power; without the protection whereof, every other man
should have equal right to the same. But if the right of the sovereign
also be excluded, he cannot perform the office they have put him into;
which is, to defend them both from foreign enemies, and from the
injuries of one another; and consequently there is no longer a
commonwealth.
And if the propriety of subjects, exclude not the right of the sovereign
representative to their goods; much less to their offices of judicature,
or execution, in which they represent the sovereign himself.
[Sidenote: Dividing of the sovereign power.]
There is a sixth doctrine, plainly, and directly against the essence of
a commonwealth; and it is this, _that the sovereign power may be
divided_. For what is it to divide the power of a commonwealth, but to
dissolve it; for powers divided mutually destroy each other. And for
these doctrines, men are chiefly beholding to some of those, that making
profession of the laws, endeavour to make them depend upon their own
learning, and not upon the legislative power.
[Sidenote: Imitation of neighbour nations.]
And as false doctrine, so also oftentimes the example of different
government in a neighbouring nation, disposeth men to alteration of the
form already settled. So the people of the Jews were stirred up to
reject God, and to call upon the prophet Samuel, for a king after the
manner of the nations: so also the lesser cities of Greece, were
continually disturbed, with seditions of the aristocratical, and
democratical factions; one part of almost every commonwealth, desiring
to imitate the Lacedemonians; the other, the Athenians. And I doubt not,
but many men have been contented to see the late troubles in England,
out of an imitation of the Low Countries; supposing there needed no more
to grow rich, than to change, as they had done, the form of their
government. For the constitution of man’s nature, is of itself subject
to desire novelty. When therefore they are provoked to the same, by the
neighbourhood also of those that have been enriched by it, it is almost
impossible for them, not to be content with those that solicit them to
change; and love the first beginnings, though they be grieved with the
continuance of disorder; like hot bloods, that having gotten the itch,
tear themselves with their own nails, till they can endure the smart no
longer.
[Sidenote: Imitation of the Greeks and Romans.]
And as to rebellion in particular against monarchy; one of the most
frequent causes of it, is the reading of the books of policy, and
histories of the ancient Greeks, and Romans; from which, 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 policy. From the reading, I say, of such books, men have
undertaken to kill their kings, because the Greek and Latin writers, in
their books, and discourses of policy, make it lawful, and laudable, for
any man so to do; provided, before he do it, he call him tyrant. For
they say not _regicide_, that is, killing a king, but _tyrannicide_,
that is, killing of a tyrant is lawful. From the same books, they that
live under a monarch conceive an opinion, that the subjects in a popular
commonwealth enjoy liberty; but that in a monarchy they are all slaves.
I say, they that live under a monarchy conceive such an opinion; not
they that live under a popular government: for they find no such matter.
In sum, I cannot imagine, how anything can be more prejudicial to a
monarchy, than the allowing of such books to be publicly read, without
present applying such correctives of discreet masters, as are fit to
take away their venom: which venom I will not doubt to compare to the
biting of a mad dog, which is a disease the physicians call
_hydrophobia_, or _fear of water_. For as he that is so bitten, has a
continual torment of thirst, and yet abhorreth water; and is in such an
estate, as if the poison endeavoured to convert him into a dog: so when
a monarchy is once bitten to the quick, by those democratical writers,
that continually snarl at that estate; it wanteth nothing more than a
strong monarch, which nevertheless out of a certain _tyrannophobia_, or
fear of being strongly governed, when they have him, they abhor.
[Sidenote: The opinion that there be more sovereigns than one in the
commonwealth.]
As there have been doctors, that hold there be three souls in a man; so
there be also that think there may be more souls, that is, more
sovereigns, than one, in a commonwealth; and set up a _supremacy_
against the _sovereignty_; _canons_ against _laws_; and a _ghostly
authority_ against the _civil_; working on men’s minds, with words and
distinctions, that of themselves signify nothing, but bewray by their
obscurity; that there walketh, as some think, invisibly another kingdom,
as it were a kingdom of fairies, in the dark. Now seeing it is manifest,
that the civil power, and the power of the commonwealth is the same
thing; and that supremacy, and the power of making canons, and granting
faculties, implieth a commonwealth; it followeth, that where one is
sovereign, another supreme; where one can make laws, and another make
canons; there must needs be two commonwealths, of one and the same
subjects; which is a kingdom divided in itself, and cannot stand. For
notwithstanding the insignificant distinction of _temporal_, and
_ghostly_, they are still two kingdoms, and every subject is subject to
two masters. For seeing the _ghostly_ power challengeth the right to
declare what is sin, it challengeth by consequence to declare what is
law, sin being nothing but the transgression of the law; and again, the
civil power challenging to declare what is law, every subject must obey
two masters, who both will have their commands be observed as law; which
is impossible. Or, if it be but one kingdom, either the _civil_, which
is the power of the commonwealth, must be subordinate to the _ghostly_,
and then there is no sovereignty but the _ghostly_; or the _ghostly_
must be subordinate to the _temporal_, and then there is no _supremacy_
but the _temporal_. When therefore these two powers oppose one another,
the commonwealth cannot but be in great danger of civil war and
dissolution. For the _civil_ authority being more visible, and standing
in the clearer light of natural reason, cannot choose but draw to it in
all times a very considerable part of the people: and the _spiritual_,
though it stand in the darkness of School distinctions, and hard words,
yet because the fear of darkness and ghosts, is greater than other
fears, cannot want a party sufficient to trouble, and sometimes to
destroy a commonwealth. And this is a disease which not unfitly may be
compared to the epilepsy, or falling sickness, which the Jews took to be
one kind of possession by spirits, in the body natural. For as in this
disease, there is an unnatural spirit, or wind in the head that
obstructeth the roots of the nerves, and moving them violently, taketh
away the motion which naturally they should have from the power of the
soul in the brain, and thereby causeth violent, and irregular motions,
which men call convulsions, in the parts; insomuch as he that is seized
therewith, falleth down sometimes into the water, and sometimes into the
fire, as a man deprived of his senses; so also in the body politic, when
the spiritual power, moveth the members of a commonwealth, by the terror
of punishments, and hope of rewards, which are the nerves of it,
otherwise than by the civil power, which is the soul of the
commonwealth, they ought to be moved; and by strange, and hard words
suffocates their understanding, it must needs thereby distract the
people, and either overwhelm the commonwealth with oppression, or cast
it into the fire of a civil war.
[Sidenote: Mixed government.]
Sometimes also in the merely civil government, there be more than one
soul; as when the power of levying money, which is the nutritive
faculty, has depended on a general assembly; the power of conduct and
command, which is the motive faculty, on one man; and the power of
making laws, which is the rational faculty, on the accidental consent,
not only of those two, but also of a third; this endangereth the
commonwealth, sometimes for want of consent to good laws; but most often
for want of such nourishment, as is necessary to life, and motion. For
although few perceive, that such government, is not government, but
division of the commonwealth into three factions, and call it mixed
monarchy; yet the truth is, that it is not one independent commonwealth,
but three independent factions; nor one representative person, but
three. In the kingdom of God, there may be three persons independent,
without breach of unity in God that reigneth; but where men reign, that
be subject to diversity of opinions, it cannot be so. And therefore if
the king bear the person of the people, and the general assembly bear
also the person of the people, and another assembly bear the person of a
part of the people, they are not one person, nor one sovereign, but
three persons, and three sovereigns.
To what disease in the natural body of man, I may exactly compare this
irregularity of a commonwealth, I know not. But I have seen a man, that
had another man growing out of his side, with a head, arms, breast, and
stomach, of his own: if he had had another man growing out of his other
side, the comparison might then have been exact.
[Sidenote: Want of money.]
Hitherto I have named such diseases of a commonwealth, as are of the
greatest, and most present danger. There be other not so great; which
nevertheless are not unfit to be observed. As first, the difficulty of
raising money, for the necessary uses of the commonwealth; especially in
the approach of war. This difficulty ariseth from the opinion, that
every subject hath a propriety in his lands and goods, exclusive of the
sovereign’s right to the use of the same. From whence it cometh to pass,
that the sovereign power, which foreseeth the necessities and dangers of
the commonwealth, finding the passage of money to the public treasury
obstructed, by the tenacity of the people, whereas it ought to extend
itself, to encounter, and prevent such dangers in their beginnings,
contracteth itself as long as it can, and when it cannot longer,
struggles with the people by stratagems of law, to obtain little sums,
which not sufficing, he is fain at last violently to open the way for
present supply, or perish; and being put often to these extremities, at
last reduceth the people to their due temper; or else the commonwealth
must perish. Insomuch as we may compare this distemper very aptly to an
ague; wherein, the fleshy parts being congealed, or by venomous matter
obstructed, the veins which by their natural course empty themselves
into the heart, are not, as they ought to be, supplied from the
arteries, whereby there succeedeth at first a cold contraction, and
trembling of the limbs; and afterward a hot, and strong endeavour of the
heart, to force a passage for the blood; and before it can do that,
contenteth itself with the small refreshments of such things as cool for
a time, till, if nature be strong enough, it break at last the contumacy
of the parts obstructed, and dissipateth the venom into sweat; or, if
nature be too weak, the patient dieth.
[Sidenote: Monopolies, and abuses of publicans.]
Again, there is sometimes in a commonwealth, a disease, which resembleth
the pleurisy; and that is, when the treasure of the commonwealth,
flowing out of its due course, is gathered together in too much
abundance, in one, or a few private men, by monopolies, or by farms of
the public revenues; in the same manner as the blood in a pleurisy,
getting into the membrane of the breast, breedeth there an inflammation,
accompanied with a fever, and painful stitches.
[Sidenote: Popular men.]
Also the popularity of a potent subject, unless the commonwealth have
very good caution of his fidelity, is a dangerous disease; because the
people, which should receive their motion from the authority of the
sovereign, by the flattery and by the reputation of an ambitious man are
drawn away from their obedience to the laws, to follow a man, of whose
virtues, and designs they have no knowledge. And this is commonly of
more danger in a popular government, than in a monarchy; because an army
is of so great force, and multitude, as it may easily be made believe,
they are the people. By this means it was, that Julius Cæsar, who was
set up by the people against the senate, having won to himself the
affections of his army, made himself master both of senate and people.
And this proceeding of popular, and ambitious men, is plain rebellion;
and may be resembled to the effects of witchcraft.
[Sidenote: Excessive greatness of a town, multitude of corporations.]
Another infirmity of a commonwealth, is the immoderate greatness of a
town, when it is able to furnish out of its own circuit, the number, and
expense of a great army: as also the great number of corporations; which
are as it were many lesser commonwealths in the bowels of a greater,
like worms in the entrails of a natural man. [Sidenote: Liberty of
disputing against sovereign power.] To which may be added, the liberty
of disputing against absolute power, by pretenders to political
prudence; which though bred for the most part in the lees of the people,
yet animated by false doctrines, are perpetually meddling with the
fundamental laws, to the molestation of the commonwealth; like the
little worms, which physicians call _ascarides_.
We may further add, the insatiable appetite, or βουλιμια, of enlarging
dominion; with the incurable _wounds_ thereby many times received from
the enemy; and the _wens_, of ununited conquests, which are many times a
burthen, and with less danger lost, than kept; as also the _lethargy_ of
ease, and _consumption_ of riot and vain expense.
[Sidenote: Dissolution of the commonwealth.]
Lastly, when in a war, foreign or intestine, the enemies get a final
victory; so as, the forces of the commonwealth keeping the field no
longer, there is no further protection of subjects in their loyalty;
then is the commonwealth DISSOLVED, and every man at liberty to protect
himself by such courses as his own discretion shall suggest unto him.
For the sovereign is the public soul, giving life and motion to the
commonwealth; which expiring, the members are governed by it no more,
than the carcase of a man, by his departed, though immortal, soul. For
though the right of a sovereign monarch cannot be extinguished by the
act of another; yet the obligation of the members may. For he that wants
protection, may seek it any where; and when he hath it, is obliged,
without fraudulent pretence of having submitted himself out of fear, to
protect his protection as long as he is able. But when the power of an
assembly is once suppressed, the right of the same perisheth utterly;
because the assembly itself is extinct; and consequently, there is no
possibility for the sovereignty to re-enter.
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