The Commonwealth of Oceana. James Harrington

being from their governors (which maxim in the politics bearing a sufficient testimony to itself, is also proved by Machiavel), if the people of Oceana have been factious, the cause is apparent, but what remedy?

      In answer to this question, I come now to the army, of which the most victorious captain and incomparable patriot, Olphaus Megaletor, was now general, who being a much greater master of that art whereof I have made a rough draught in these preliminaries, had such sad reflections upon the ways and proceedings of the Parliament as cast him upon books and all other means of diversion, among which he happened on this place of Machiavel: “Thrice happy is that people which chances to have a man able to give them such a government at once, as without alteration may secure them of their liberties; seeing it was certain that Lacedaemon, in observing the laws of Lycurgus, continued about 800 years without any dangerous tumult or corruption.” My lord general (as it is said of Themistocles, that he could not sleep for the glory obtained by Miltiades at the battle of Marathon) took so new and deep an impression at these words of the much greater glory of Lycurgus, that, being on this side assaulted with the emulation of his illustrious object, and on the other with the misery of the nation, which seemed (as it were ruined by his victory) to cast itself at his feet, he was almost wholly deprived of his natural rest, till the debate he had within himself came to a firm resolution, that the greatest advantages of a commonwealth are, first, that the legislator should be one man; and, secondly, that the government should be made all together, or at once. For the first, it is certain, says Machiavel, that a commonwealth is seldom or never well turned or constituted, except it has been the work of one man; for which cause a wise legislator, and one whose mind is firmly set, not upon private but the public interest, not upon his posterity but upon his country, may justly endeavor to get the sovereign power into his own hands, nor shall any man that is master of reason blame such extraordinary means as in that case will be necessary, the end proving no other than the constitution of a well-ordered commonwealth.

      The reason of this is demonstrable; for the ordinary means not failing, the commonwealth has no need of a legislator, but the ordinary means failing, there is no recourse to be had but to such as are extraordinary. And, whereas a book or a building has not been known to attain to its perfection if it has not had a sole author or architect, a commonwealth, as to the fabric of it, is of the like nature. And thus it may be made at once; in which there be great advantages; for a commonwealth made at once, takes security at the same time it lends money; and trusts not itself to the faith of men, but launches immediately forth into the empire of laws, and, being set straight, brings the manners of its citizens to its rule, whence followed that uprightness which was in Lacedaemon. But manners that are rooted in men, bow the tenderness of a commonwealth coming up by twigs to their bent, whence followed the obliquity that was in Rome, and those perpetual repairs by the consuls’ axes, and tribunes’ hammers, which could never finish that commonwealth but in destruction.