And if the whole people be landlords, or hold the lands so
divided among them that no one man, or number of men, within the
compass of the few or aristocracy, overbalance them, the empire
(without the interposition of force) is a commonwealth.
If force be interposed in any of these three cases, it must
either frame the government to the foundation, or the foundation
to the government; or holding the government not according to the
balance, it is not natural, but violent; and therefore if it be
at the devotion of a prince, it is tyranny; if at the devotion of
the few, oligarchy; or if in the power of the people, anarchy:
Each of which confusions, the balance standing otherwise, is but
of short continuance, because against the nature of the balance,
which, not destroyed, destroys that which opposes it.
But there be certain other confusions, which, being rooted in
the balance, are of longer continuance, and of worse consequence;
as, first, where a nobility holds half the property, or about
that proportion, and the people the other half; in which case,
without altering the balance there is no remedy but the one must
eat out the other, as the people did the nobility in Athens, and
the nobility the people in Rome. Secondly, when a prince holds
about half the dominion, and the people the other half (which was
the case of the Roman emperors, planted partly upon their
military colonies and partly upon the Senate and the people), the
government becomes a very shambles, both of the princes and the
people.
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