continuance, because against
the nature of the balance, which, not destroyed, destroys that which
opposes it.

But there be certain other confusions, which, being rooted in the
balance, are of longer continuance, and of worse consequence; as, first,
where a nobility holds half the property, or about that proportion, and
the people the other half; in which case, without altering the balance
there is no remedy but the one must eat out the other, as the people did
the nobility in Athens, and the nobility the people in Rome. Secondly,
when a prince holds about half the dominion, and the people the other
half (which was the case of the Roman emperors, planted partly upon
their military colonies and partly upon the Senate and the people), the
government becomes a very shambles, both of the princes and the people.
Somewhat of this nature are certain governments at this day, which are
said to subsist by confusion. In this case, to fix the balance is to
entail misery; but in the three former, not to fix it is to lose the
government. Wherefore it being unlawful in Turkey that any should
possess land but the Grand Seignior, the balance is fixed by the law,
and that empire firm. Nor, though the kings often sell was the throne
of Oceana known to shake, until the statute of alienations broke the
pillars, by giving way to the nobility to sell their estates. While
Lacedaemon held to the division of land made by Lycurgus, it was
immovable; but, breaking that, could stand no longer. This kind of law
fixing the balance in lands is called agrarian, and was first introduced
by God himself, who divided the land of Canaan to his people by lots,
and is of such virtue that wherever it has held, that government has
not altered, except by consent; as in that unparalleled example of the
people of Israel, when being in liberty they would needs choose a
king. But without an agrarian law, government, whether monarchical,
aristocratical, or popular, has no long lease.

As for dominion, personal or in money, it may now and then stir up a
Melius or a Manlius, which, if the Commonwealth be not provided with
some kind of dictatorian power, may be dangerous, though it has been
seldom or never successful; because to property producing empire, it
is required that it should have some certain root or foothold, which,
except in land, it cannot have, being otherwise as it were upon the
wing.

Nevertheless, in such cities as subsist mostly by trade, and have l