Nevertheless, in such cities as subsist mostly by trade, and
have little or no land, as Holland and Genoa, the balance of
treasure may be equal to that of land in the cases mentioned.
But Leviathan, though he seems to skew at antiquity,
following his furious master Carneades, has caught hold of the
public sword, to which he reduces all manner and matter of
government; as, where he affirms this opinion (that any monarch
receives his power by covenant; that is to say, upon conditions)"
to proceed from the not understanding this easy truth, that
covenants being but words and breath, have no power to oblige,
contain, constrain, or protect any man, but what they have from
the public sword." But as he said of the law, that without this
sword it is but paper, so he might have thought of this sword,
that without a hand it is but cold iron. The hand which holds
this sword is the militia of a nation; and the militia of a
nation is either an army in the field, or ready for the field
upon occasion. But an army is a beast that has a great belly, and
must be fed: wherefore this will come to what pastures you have,
and what pastures you have will come to the balance of property,
without which the public sword is but a name or mere spitfrog.
Wherefore, to set that which Leviathan says of arms and of
contracts a little straighter, he that can graze this beast with
the great belly, as the Turk does his Timariots, may well deride
him that imagines he received his power by covenant, or is
obliged to any such toy.
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