tyranny at the
greatest distance from the greatest number of people. Now the great who
were tyrants themselves before the election of one tyrant, are naturally
averse to a power raised over them, and whose weight must ever lean
heaviest on the subordinate orders. It is the interest of the great,
therefore, to diminish kingly power as much as possible; because
whatever they take from that is naturally restored to themselves; and
all they have to do in the state, is to undermine the single tyrant, by
which they resume their primaeval authority. Now, the state may be so
circumstanced, or its laws may be so disposed, or its men of opulence so
minded, as all to conspire in carrying on this business of undermining
monarchy. For, in the first place, if the circumstances of our state
be such, as to favour the accumulation of wealth, and make the opulent
still more rich, this will encrease their ambition. An accumulation of
wealth, however, must necessarily be the consequence, when as at present
more riches flow in from external commerce, than arise from internal
industry: for external commerce can only be managed to advantage by the
rich, and they have also at the same time all the emoluments arising
from internal industry: so that the rich, with us, have two sources of
wealth, whereas the poor have but one. For this reason, wealth in all
commercial states is found to accumulate, and all such have hitherto in
time become aristocratical. Again, the very laws also of this country
may contribute to the accumulation of wealth; as when by their means the
natural ties that bind the rich and poor together are broken, and it
is ordained that the rich shall only marry with the rich; or when the
learned are held unqualified to serve their country as counsellors
merely from a defect of opulence, and wealth is thus made the object of
a wise man's ambition; by these means I say, and such means as these,
riches will accumulate. Now the possessor of accumulated wealth, when
furnished with the necessaries and pleasures of life, has no other
method to employ the superfluity of his fortune but in purchasing power.
That is, differently speaking, in making dependents, by purchasing the
liberty of the needy or the venal, of men who are willing to bear the
mortification of contiguous tyranny for bread. Thus each very opulent
man generally gathers round him a circle of the poorest of the people;
and the polity abounding in accumulated wealth, may be c