way, and to
pass the best judgment; and, consequently, it is one thing to have
dominion and care of affairs of state by right, and another to exercise
dominion and direct affairs of state in the best way. And so, as we have
treated of the right of every commonwealth in general, it is time to
treat of the best state of every dominion.

Now the quality of the state of any dominion is easily perceived from
the end of the civil state, which end is nothing else but peace and
security of life. And therefore that dominion is the best, where men
pass their lives in unity, and the laws are kept unbroken. For it is
certain, that seditions, wars, and contempt or breach of the laws are
not so much to be imputed to the wickedness of the subjects, as to the
bad state of a dominion. For men are not born fit for citizenship, but
must be made so. Besides, men's natural passions are everywhere the
same; and if wickedness more prevails, and more offenses are committed
in one commonwealth than in another, it is certain that the former has
not enough pursued the end of unity, nor framed its laws with sufficient
forethought; and that, therefore, it has failed in making quite good its
right as a commonwealth. For a civil state, which has not done away with
the causes of seditions, where war is a perpetual object of fear, and
where, lastly, the laws are often broken, differs but little from the
mere state of Nature, in which every one lives after his own mind at the
great risk of his life.

But as the vices and inordinate license and contumacy of subjects must
be imputed to the commonwealth, so, on the other hand, their virtue and
constant obedience to the laws are to be ascribed in the main to the
virtue and perfect right of the commonwealth. And so it is deservedly
reckoned to Hannibal as an extraordinary virtue, that in his army there
never arose a sedition.

Of a commonwealth, whose subjects are but hindered by terror from taking
arms, it should rather be said, that it is free from war, than that it
has peace. For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that
springs from force of character: for obedience is the constant will to
execute what, by the general decree of the commonwealth, ought to be
done. Besides, that commonwealth whose peace depends on the
sluggishness of its subjects, that are led about like sheep to learn
but slavery, may more properly be called a desert than a commonwealth.

When, then, we call that dominion