Part 4 (1/2)
The Romans, in one of their defeats of the Volsci, found among the captives certain Tusculans, who, upon examination, confessed that the arms they bore were by command of their State; whereupon information being given to the Senate by the general Camillus, he was forthwith commanded to march against Tusculum which doing accordingly, he found the Tusculan fields full of husbandmen, that stirred not otherwise from the plough than to furnish his army with all kinds of accommodations and victuals. Drawing near to the city, he saw the gates wide open, the magistrates coming out in their gowns to salute and bid him welcome; entering, the shops were all at work, and open, the streets sounded with the noise of schoolboys at their books; there was no face of war.
Whereupon Camillus, causing the Senate to a.s.semble, told them, that though the art was understood, yet had they at length found out the true arms whereby the Romans were most undoubtedly to be conquered, for which cause he would not antic.i.p.ate the Senate, to which he desired them forthwith to send, which they did accordingly; and their dictator with the rest of their amba.s.sadors being found by the Roman senators as they went into the house standing sadly at the door were sent for in as friends, and not as enemies; where the dictator having said, ”If we have offended, the fault was not so great as is our penitence and your virtue,” the Senate gave them peace forthwith, and soon after made the Tusculans citizens of Rome.
But putting the case, of which the world is not able to show an example, that the forfeiture of a populous nation, not conquered, but friends, and in cool blood, might be taken, your army must be planted in one of the ways mentioned. To plant it in the way of absolute monarchy, that is, upon feuds for life, such as the Timars, a country as large and fruitful as that of Greece, would afford you but 16,000 Timariots, for that is the most the Turk (being the best husband that ever was of this kind) makes of it at this day: and if Oceana, which is less in fruitfulness by one-half, and in extent by three parts, should have no greater a force, whoever breaks her in one battle, may be sure she shall never rise; for such (as was noted by Machiavel) is the nature of the Turkish monarchy, if you break it in two battles, you have destroyed its whole militia, and the rest being all slaves, you hold it without any further resistance. Wherefore the erection of an absolute monarchy in Oceana, or in any other country that is no larger, without making it a certain prey to the first invader is altogether impossible.
To plant by halves, as the Roman emperors did their beneficiaries, or military colonies, it must be either for life; and this an army of Oceaners in their own country, especially having estates of inheritance, will never bear because such an army so planted is as well confiscated as the people; nor had the Mamelukes been contented with such usage in Egypt, but that they were foreigners, and daring not to mix with the natives, it was of absolute necessity to their being.
Or planting them upon inheritance, whether aristocratically as the Neustrians, or democratically as the Israelites, they grow up by certain consequences into the national interest, and this, if they be planted popularly, comes to a commonwealth; if by way of n.o.bility, to a mixed monarchy, which of all other will be found to be the only kind of monarchy whereof this nation, or any other that is of no greater extent, has been or can be capable; for if the Israelites, though their democratical balance, being fixed by their agrarian, stood firm, be yet found to have elected kings, it was because, their territory lying open, they were perpetually invaded, and being perpetually invaded, turned themselves to anything which, through the want of experience, they thought might be a remedy; whence their mistake in election of their kings, under whom they gained nothing, but, on the contrary, lost all they had acquired by their commonwealth, both estates and liberties, is not only apparent, but without parallel. And if there have been, as was shown, a kingdom of the Goths in Spain, and of the Vandals in Asia, consisting of a single person and a Parliament (taking a parliament to be a council of the people only, without a n.o.bility), it is expressly said of those councils that they deposed their kings as often as they pleased; nor can there be any other consequence of such a government, seeing where there is a council of the people they do never receive laws, but give them; and a council giving laws to a single person, he has no means in the world whereby to be any more than a subordinate magistrate but force: in which case he is not a single person and a parliament, but a single person and an army, which army again must be planted as has been shown, or can be of no long continuance.
It is true, that the provincial balance bring in nature quite contrary to the national, you are no way to plant a provincial army upon dominion. But then you must have a native territory in strength, situation, or government, able to overbalance the foreign, or you can never hold it. That an army should in any other case be long supported by a mere tax, is a mere fancy as void of all reason and experience as if a man should think to maintain such a one by robbing of orchards; for a mere tax is but pulling of plum-trees, the roots whereof are in other men's grounds, who, suffering perpetual violence, come to hate the author of it; and it is a maxim, that no prince that is hated by his people can be safe. Arms planted upon dominion extirpate enemies and make friends; but maintained by a mere tax, have enemies that have roots, and friends that have none.
To conclude, Oceana, or any other nation of no greater extent, must have a competent n.o.bility, or is altogether incapable of monarchy; for where there is equality of estates, there must be equality of power, and where there is equality of power, there can be no monarchy.
To come then to the generation of the commonwealth. It has been shown how, through the ways and means used by Panurgus to abase the n.o.bility, and so to mend that flaw which we have a.s.serted to be incurable in this kind of const.i.tution, he suffered the balance to fall into the power of the people, and so broke the government; but the balance being in the people, the commonwealth (though they do not see it) is already in the nature of them. There wants nothing else but time, which is slow and dangerous, or art, which would be more quick and secure, for the bringing those native arms, wherewithal they are found already, to resist, they know not how, everything that opposes them, to such maturity as may fix them upon their own strength and bottom.
But whereas this art is prudence, and that part of prudence which regards the present work is nothing else but the skill of raising such superstructures of government as are natural to the known foundations, they never mind the foundation, but through certain animosities, wherewith by striving one against another they are infected, or through freaks, by which, not regarding the course of things, nor how they conduce to their purpose, they are given to building in the air, come to be divided and subdivided into endless parties and factions, both civil and ecclesiastical, which, briefly to open, I shall first speak of the people in general, and then of their divisions.
A people, says Machiavel, that is corrupt, is not capable of a commonwealth. But in showing what a corrupt people is, he has either involved himself, or me; nor can I otherwise come out of the labyrinth, than by saying, the balance altering a people, as to the foregoing government, must of necessity be corrupt; but corruption in this sense signifies no more than that the corruption of one government, as in natural bodies, is the generation of another. Wherefore if the balance alters from monarchy, the corruption of the people in this case is that which makes them capable of a commonwealth. But whereas I am not ignorant that the corruption which he means is in manners, this also is from the balance. For the balance leading from monarchical into popular abates the luxury of the n.o.bility, and, enriching the people, brings the government from a more private to a more public interest which coming nearer, as has been shown, to justice and right reason, the people upon a like alteration is so far from such a corruption of manners as should render them incapable of a commonwealth, that of necessity they must thereby contract such a reformation of manners as will bear no other kind of government. On the other side, where the balance changes from popular to oligarchical or monarchical, the public interest, with the reason and justice included in the sane, becomes more private; luxury is introduced in the room of temperance, and servitude in that of freedom, which causes such a corruption of manners both in the n.o.bility and people, as, by the example of Rome in the time of the Triumvirs, is more at large discovered by the author to have been altogether incapable of a commonwealth.
But the balance of Oceana changing quite contrary to that of Rome, the manners of the people were not thereby corrupted, but, on the contrary, adapted to a commonwealth. For differences of opinion in a people not rightly informed of their balance, or a division into parties (while there is not any common ligament of power sufficient to reconcile or hold them) is no sufficient proof of corruption. Nevertheless, seeing this must needs be matter of scandal and danger, it will not be amiss, in showing what were the parties, to show what were their errors.
The parties into which this nation was divided, were temporal or spiritual; and the temporal parties were especially two, the one royalists, the other republicans, each of which a.s.serted their different causes, either out of prudence or ignorance, out of interest or conscience.
For prudence, either that of the ancients is inferior to the modern, which we have hitherto been setting face to face, that anyone may judge, or that of the royalist must be inferior to that of the commonwealths man. And for interest, taking the commonwealths man to have really intended the public, for otherwise he is a hypocrite and the worst of men, that of the royalist must of necessity have been more private.
Wherefore, the whole dispute will come upon matter of conscience, and this, whether it be urged by the right of kings, the obligation of former laws, or of the oath of allegiance, is absolved by the balance.
For if the right of kings were as immediately derived from the breath of G.o.d as the life of man, yet this excludes not death and dissolution.
But, that the dissolution of the late monarchy was as natural as the death of man, has been already shown. Wherefore it remains with the royalists to discover by what reason or experience it is possible for a monarchy to stand upon a popular balance; or, the balance being popular, as well the oath of allegiance, as all other monarchical laws, imply an impossibility, and are therefore void.
To the commonwealths man I have no more to say, but that if he excludes any party, he is not truly such, nor shall ever found a commonwealth upon the natural principle of the same, which is justice. And the royalist for having not opposed a commonwealth in Oceana, where the laws were so ambiguous that they might be eternally disputed and never reconciled, can neither be justly for that cause excluded from his full and equal share in the government; nor prudently for this reason, that a commonwealth consisting of a party will be in perpetual labor for her own destruction: whence it was that the Romans, having conquered the Albans, incorporated them with equal right into the commonwealth. And if the royalists be ”flesh of your flesh,” and nearer of blood than were the Albans to the Romans, you being also both Christians, the argument is the stronger. Nevertheless there is no reason that a commonwealth should any more favor a party remaining in fixed opposition against it, than Brutus did his own sons. But if it fixes them upon that opposition, it is its own fault, not theirs; and this is done by excluding them. Men that have equal possessions and the same security for their estates and their liberties that you have, have the same cause with you to defend both; but if you will liberty, though for monarchy; and be trampling, they fight for you for tyranny, though under the name of a commonwealth: the nature of orders in a government rightly inst.i.tuted being void of all jealousy, because, let the parties which it embraces be what they will, its orders are such as they neither would resist if they could, nor could if they would, as has been partly already shown, and will appear more at large by the following model.
The parties that are spiritual are of more kinds than I need mention; some for a national religion, and others for liberty of conscience, with such animosity on both sides, as if these two could not consist together, and of which I have already sufficiently spoken, to show that indeed the one cannot well subsist without the other But they of all the rest are the most dangerous, who, holding that the saints must govern, go about to reduce the commonwealth to a party, as well for the reasons already shown, as that their pretences are against Scripture, where the saints are commanded to submit to the higher powers, and to be subject to the ordinance of man. And that men, pretending under the notion of saints or religion to civil power, have hitherto never failed to dishonor that profession, the world is full of examples, whereof I shall confine myself at present only to a couple, the one of old, the other of new Rome.
In old Rome, the patricians or n.o.bility pretending to be the G.o.dly party, were questioned by the people for engrossing all the magistracies of that commonwealth, and had nothing to say why they did so, but that magistracy required a kind of holiness which was not in the people; at which the people were filled with such indignation as had come to cutting of throats, if the n.o.bility had not immediately laid by the insolency of that plea; which nevertheless when they had done, the people for a long time after continued to elect no other but patrician magistrates.
The example of new Rome in the rise and practice of the hierarchy (too well known to require any further ill.u.s.tration) is far more immodest.
This has been the course of nature; and when it has pleased or shall please G.o.d to introduce anything that is above the course of nature, he will, as he has always done, confirm it by miracle; for so in his prophecy of the reign of Christ upon earth he expressly promises, seeing that ”the souls of them that were beheaded for Jesus, shall be seen to live and reign with him;” which will be an object of sense, the rather, because the rest of the dead are not to live again till the thousand years be finished. And it is not lawful for men to persuade us that a thing already is, though there be no such object of our sense, which G.o.d has told us shall not be till it be an object of our sense.
The saints.h.i.+p of a people as to government, consists in the election of magistrates fearing G.o.d, and hating covetousness, and not in their confining themselves, or being confined, to men of this or that party or profession. It consists in making the most prudent and religious choice they can; yet not in trusting to men, but, next G.o.d, to their own orders. ”Give us good men, and they will make us good laws,” is the maxim of a demagogue, and is (through the alteration which is commonly perceivable in men, when they have power to work their own wills) exceeding fallible. But ”give us good orders, and they will make us good men,” is the maxim of a legislator, and the most infallible in the politics.
But these divisions (however there be some good men that look sadly on them) are trivial things; first as to the civil concern, because the government, whereof this nation is capable, being once seen, takes in all interests. And, secondly, as to the spiritual; because as the pretence of religion has always been turbulent in broken governments, so where the government has been sound and steady, religion has never shown itself with any other face than that of its natural sweetness and tranquillity, nor is there any reason why it should, wherefore the errors of the people are occasioned by their governors. If they be doubtful of the way, or wander from it, it is because their guides misled them; and the guides of the people are never so well qualified for leading by any virtue of their own, as by that of the government.
The government of Oceana (as it stood at the time whereof we discourse, consisting of one single Council of the people, exclusively of the King and the Lords) was called a Parliament: nevertheless the parliaments of the Teutons and of the Neustrians consisted, as has been shown, of the King, lords, and commons; wherefore this, under an old name, was a new thing a parliament consisting of a single a.s.sembly elected by the people, and invested with the whole power of the government, without any covenants, conditions, or orders whatsoever. So new a thing, that neither ancient nor modern prudence can show any avowed example of the like. And there is scarce anything that seems to me so strange as that (whereas there was nothing more familiar with these councillors than to bring the Scripture to the house) there should not be a man of them that so much as offered to bring the house to the Scripture, wherein, as has been shown, is contained that original, whereof all the rest of the commonwealths seem to be copies. Certainly if Leviathan (who is surer of nothing than that a popular commonwealth consists but of one council) transcribed his doctrine out of this a.s.sembly, for him to except against Aristotle and Cicero for writing out of their own commonwealths was not so fair play; or if the Parliament transcribed out of him, it had been an honor better due to Moses. But where one of them should have an example but from the other, I cannot imagine, there being nothing of this kind that I can find in story, but the oligarchy of Athens, the Thirty Tyrants of the same, and the Roman Decemvirs.
For the oligarchy, Thucydides tells us, that it was a Senate or council of 400, pretending to a balancing council of the people consisting of 5,000, but not producing them; wherein you have the definition of an oligarchy, which is a single council both debating and resolving, dividing and choosing, and what that must come to was shown by the example of the girls, and is apparent by the experience of all times; wherefore the thirty set up by the Lacedaemonians (when they had conquered Athens) are called tyrants by all authors, Leviathan only excepted, who will have them against all the world to have been an aristocracy, but for what reason I cannot imagine; these also, as void of any balance, having been void of that which is essential to every commonwealth, whether aristocratical or popular, except he be pleased with them, because that, according to the testimony of Xenophon, they killed more men in eight months than the Lacedaemonians had done in ten years; ”oppressing the people (to use Sir Walter Raleigh's words) with all base and intolerable slavery.”