sufficient authority to restrain the people from that perpetual
turbulence in the end, which was their ruin, notwithstanding the
efforts of Nicias, who did all a man could do to help it. But as
Athens, by the headiness of the people, so Rome fell by the
ambition of the nobility, through the want of an equal rotation;
which, if the people had got into the Senate, and timely into the
magistracies (whereof the former was always usurped by the
patricians, and the latter for the most part) they had both
carried and held their agrarian, and that had rendered that
commonwealth immovable.

But let a commonwealth be equal or unequal, it must consist,
as has been shown by reason and all experience, of the three
general orders; that is to say, of the Senate debating and
proposing, of the people resolving, and of the magistracy
executing. Wherefore I can never wonder enough at Leviathan, who,
without any reason or example, will have it that a commonwealth
consists of a single person, or of a single assembly; nor can I
sufficiently pity those "thousand gentlemen, whose minds, which
otherwise would have wavered, he has framed (as is affirmed by
himself) in to a conscientious obedience (for so he is pleased to
call it) of such a government."

But to finish this part of the discourse, which I intend for
as complete an epitome of ancient prudence, and in that of the
whole art of politics, as I am able to frame in so short a time:

The two first orders, that is to say, the Senate and the
people, are legislative, whereunto answers that part of this
science which by politicians is entitled "of laws;" and the third