But in the present case, the six dividing, and the
fourteen choosing, must of necessity take in the whole interest
of the twenty.
Dividing and choosing, in the language of a commonwealth, is
debating and resolving; and whatsoever, upon debate of the
senate, is proposed to the people, and resolved by them, is
enacted by the authority of the fathers, and by the power of the
people, which concurring, make a law.
But the law being made, says Leviathan, "is but words and
paper without the hands and swords of men;" wherefore as these
two orders of a commonwealth, namely, the senate and the people,
are legislative, so of necessity there must be a third to be
executive of the laws made, and this is the magistracy. In which
order, with the rest being wrought up by art, the commonwealth
consists of "the senate proposing, the people resolving, and the
magistracy executing," whereby partaking of the aristocracy as in
the senate, of the democracy as in the people, and of monarchy as
in the magistracy, it is complete. Now there being no other
commonwealth but this in art or nature, it is no wonder if
Machiavel has shown us that the ancients held this only to be
good; but it seems strange to me that they should hold that there
could be any other, for if there be such a thing as pure
monarchy, yet that there should be such a one as pure aristocracy
or pure democracy is not in my understanding.
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