being brought forth by the result, must be virtue; and forasmuch
as the soul of a city or nation is the sovereign power, her
virtue must be law. But the government whose law is virtue, and
whose virtue is law, is the same whose empire is authority, and
whose authority is empire.
Again, if the liberty of a man consists in the empire of his
reason, the absence whereof would betray him to the bondage of
his passions, then the liberty of a commonwealth consists in the
empire of her laws, the absence whereof would betray her to the
lust of tyrants. And these I conceive to be the principles upon
which Aristotle and Livy (injuriously accused by Leviathan for
not writing out of nature) have grounded their assertion, "that a
commonwealth is an empire of laws and not of men." But they must
not carry it so. "For," says he, "the liberty whereof there is so
frequent and honorable mention in the histories and philosophy of
the ancient Greeks and Romans, and the writings and discourses of
those that from them have received all their learning in the
politics, is not the liberty of particular men, but the liberty
of the commonwealth." He might as well have said that the estates
of particular men in a commonwealth are not the riches of
particular men, but the riches of the commonwealth; for equality
of estates causes equality of power, and equality of power is the
liberty, not only of the commonwealth, but of every man.
But sure a man would never be thus irreverent with the
greatest authors, and positive against all antiquity without some
certain demonstration of truth -- and what is it? Why, "there is
written on the turrets of the city of Lucca in great characters
at this day the word LIBERTAS; yet no man can thence infer that a
particular man has more liberty or immunity from the service of
the commonwealth there than in Constantinople. Whether a
commonwealth be monarchical or popular the freedom is the same."
The mountain has brought forth, and we have a little
equivocation! For to say that a Lucchese has no more liberty or
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