of the third
region of the Senate into the Council of Religion, consisting of
twelve knights, four in every region; of this council the censors are
presidents. Fourthly, by the annual election of four knights out of
the third region of the Senate into the Council of Trade, consisting of
twelve knights, four in every region. And each region, in every one of
these councils thus constituted, shall weekly and interchangeably elect
one provost whose magistracy shall continue for one week; nor shall he
be re-elected into the same till every knight of that region in the same
council has once borne the same magistracy. And the provosts being one
in every region, three in every council, and twelve in all, beside their
other capacities, shall assemble and be a council, or rather an Academy
apart, to certain ends and purposes to be hereafter further explained
with those of the rest of the councils."

This order is of no other use than the frame and turn of the councils,
and yet of no small one; for in motion consists life, and the motion of
a commonwealth will never be current unless it be circular. Men that,
like my Lord Epimonus, not enduring the resemblance of this kind of
government to orbs and spheres, fall on physicking and purging it, do no
more than is necessary; for if it be not in rotation both as to persons
and things, it will be very sick. The people of Rome, as to persons, if
they had not been taken up by the wheel of magistracy, had overturned
the chariot of the Senate. And those of Lacedaemon, as to things, had
not been so quiet when the Senate trashed their business, by encroaching
upon the result, if by the institution of the ephors they had not
brought it about again. So that if you allow not a commonwealth her
rotation, in which consists her equality, you reduce her to a party, and
then it is necessary that you be physicians indeed, or rather farriers;
for you will have strong patients, and such as must be haltered and
cast, or yourselves may need bone-setters. Wherefore the councils of
this commonwealth, both in regard of their elections, and, as will
be shown, of their affairs, are uniform with the Senate in their
revolutions; not as whirlpits to swallow, but to bite, and with the
screws of their rotation to hold and turn a business (like the vice of a
smith) to the hand of the workman. Without engines of which nature it
is not possible for the Senate, much less for the people, to be perfect
artificers in a p