The opinion of Verulamius is safe:
'The errors,' says he, 'of young men are the ruin of business;
whereas the errors of old men amount but to this, that more might
have been done, or sooner.' But though their wisdom be little,
their courage is great; wherefore (to come to the main education
of this commonwealth) the militia of Oceana is the province of
youth.
"The distribution of this province by the essays is so fully
described in the order, that I need repeat nothing; the order
itself being but a repetition or copy of that original, which in
ancient prudence is of all others the fairest, as that from
whence the Commonwealth of Rome more particularly derived the
empire of the world. And there is much more reason in this age,
when governments are universally broken, or swerved from their
foundations, and the people groan under tyranny, that the same
causes (which could not be withstood when the world was full of
popular governments) should have the like effects.
"The causes in the Commonwealth of Rome, whereof the empire
of the world was not any miraculous, but a natural (nay, I may
safely say a necessary) consequence, are contained in that part
of her discipline which was domestic, and in that which she
exercises in her provinces or conquest. Of the latter I shall
have better occasion to speak when we come to our provincial
orbs; the former divided the whole people by tribes, amounting,
as Livy and Cicero show, at their full growth to thirty-five, and
every tribe by the sense or valuation of estates into five
classes: for the sixth being proletary, that is the nursery, or
such as through their poverty contributed nothing to the
commonwealth but children, was not reckoned nor used in arms.
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