plified at large in the judicature of the people of Oceana. And
thus much of ancient prudence, and the first branch of this preliminary
discourse.

THE SECOND PART OF THE PRELIMINARIES

In the second part I shall endeavor to show the rise, progress, and
declination of modern prudence.

The date of this kind of policy is to be computed, as was shown, from
those inundations of Goths, Vandals, Huns, and Lombards that overwhelmed
the Roman Empire. But as there is no appearance in the bulk or
constitution of modern prudence, that it should ever have been able to
come up and grapple with the ancient, so something of necessity must
have interposed whereby this came to be enervated, and that to receive
strength and encouragement. And this was the execrable reign of the
Roman emperors taking rise from (that felix scelus) the arms of
Caesar, in which storm the ship of the Roman Commonwealth was forced
to disburden itself of that precious freight, which never since could
emerge or raise its head but in the Gulf of Venice.

It is said in Scripture, "Thy evil is of thyself, O Israel!" to which
answers that of the moralists, "None is hurt but by himself," as also
the whole matter of the politics; at present this example of the Romans,
who, through a negligence committed in their agrarian laws, let in the
sink of luxury, and forfeited the inestimable treasure of liberty for
themselves and their posterity.

Their agrarian laws were such whereby their lands ought to have been
divided among the people, either without mention of a colony, in which
case they were not obliged to change their abode; or with mention and
upon condition of a colony, in which case they were to change their
abode, and leaving the city, to plant themselves upon the lands so
assigned. The lands assigned, or that ought to have been assigned, in
either of these ways, were of three kinds: such as were taken from the
enemy and distributed to the people; or such as were taken from the
enemy, and, under color of being reserved to the public use, were
through stealth possessed by the nobility; or such as were bought with
the public money to be distributed. Of the laws offered in these cases,
those which divided the lands taken from the enemy, or purchased with
the public money, never occasioned any dispute; but such as drove at
dispossessing the nobility of their usurpations, and dividing the common
purchase of the sword among the people, were never touched but they