"Sixthly, but I do not see (to come to the last point) how it
is possible that this thing should be brought about, to your good
I mean, though it may to the destruction of many. For that the
agrarian of Israel, or that of Lacedaemon, might stand, is no
such miracle; the lands, without any consideration of the former
proprietor, being surveyed and cast into equal lots, which could
neither be bought, nor sold, nor multiplied: so that they knew
whereabout to have a man. But in this nation no such division can
be introduced, the lands being already in the hands of
proprietors, and such whose estates lie very rarely together, but
mixed one with another being also of tenures in nature so
different, that as there is no experience that an agrarian was
ever introduced in such a case, so there is no appearance how or
reason why it should: but that which is against reason and
experience is impossible."
The case of my Lord Philautus was the most concerned in the
whole nation; for he had four younger brothers, his father being
yet living, to whom he was heir of ?10,000 a year. Wherefore
being a man both of good parts and esteem, his words wrought both
upon men's reason and passions, and had borne a stroke at the
head of the business, if my Lord Archon had not interposed the
buckler in this oration:
"MY LORDS, THE LEGISLATORS OF OCEANA:
"My Lord Philautus has made a thing which is easy to seem
hard; if the thanks were due to his eloquence, it would be worthy
of less praise than that he owes it to his merit, and the love he
has most deservedly purchased of all men: nor is it rationally to
be feared that he who is so much beforehand in his private,
should be in arrear in his public, capacity.
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