government is one composed of a very few, a domestic of more, a civil
and a regal of still more, as if there was no difference between a
large family and a small city, or that a regal government and a
political one are the same, only that in the one a single person is
continually at the head of public affairs; in the other, that each
member of the state has in his turn a share in the government, and is
at one time a magistrate, at another a private person, according to
the rules of political science. But now this is not true, as will be
evident to any one who will consider this question in the most
approved method. As, in an inquiry into every other subject, it is
necessary to separate the different parts of which it is compounded,
till we arrive at their first elements, which are the most minute
parts thereof; so by the same proceeding we shall acquire a knowledge
of the primary parts of a city and see wherein they differ from each
other, and whether the rules of art will give us any assistance in
examining into each of these things which are mentioned.





CHAPTER II


Now if in this particular science any one would attend to its original
seeds, and their first shoot, he would then as in others have the
subject perfectly before him; and perceive, in the first place, that
it is requisite that those should be joined together whose species
cannot exist without each other, as the male and the female, for the
business of propagation; and this not through choice, but by that