prudence, is power;" for the
learning or prudence of a man is no more power than the learning or
prudence of a book or author, which is properly authority. A learned
writer may have authority though he has no power; and a foolish
magistrate may have power, though he has otherwise no esteem or
authority. The difference of these two is observed by Livy in Evander,
of whom he says that he governed rather by the authority of others than
by his own power.

To begin with riches, in regard that men are hung upon these, not of
choice as upon the other, but of necessity and by the teeth; forasmuch
as he who wants bread is his servant that will feed him, if a man thus
feeds a whole people, they are under his empire.

Empire is of two kinds, domestic and national, or foreign and
provincial.

Domestic empire is founded upon dominion. Dominion is property, real or
personal; that is to say, in lands, or in money and goods.

Lands, or the parts and parcels of a territory, are held by the
proprietor or proprietors, lord or lords of it, in some proportion;
and such (except it be in a city that has little or no land, and whose
revenue is in trade) as is the proportion or balance of dominion or
property in land, such is the nature of the empire.

If one man be sole landlord of a territory, or overbalance the people,
for example, three parts in four, he is grand seignior; for so the Turk
is called from his property, and his empire is absolute monarchy.

If the few or a nobility, or a nobility with the clergy, be landlords,
or overbalance the people to the like proportion, it makes the Gothic
balance (to be shown at large in the second part of this discourse),
and the empire is mixed monarchy, as that of Spain, Poland, and late of
Oceana.

And if the whole people be landlords, or hold the lands so divided among
them that no one man, or number of men, within the compass of the few or
aristocracy, overbalance them, the empire (without the interposition of
force) is a commonwealth.

If force be interposed in any of these three cases, it must either frame
the government to the foundation, or the foundation to the government;
or holding the government not according to the balance, it is not
natural, but violent; and therefore if it be at the devotion of a
prince, it is tyranny; if at the devotion of the few, oligarchy; or
if in the power of the people, anarchy: Each of which confusions, the
balance standing otherwise, is but of short