The Commonwealth of Oceana by James Harrington
page 49 of 382 (12%)
page 49 of 382 (12%)
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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 |
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