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: