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