factious, there being no other dividing of the cake in that case
but among themselves.
Nor is there any remedy but to have another council to
choose. The wisdom of the few may be the light of mankind; but
the interest of the few is not the profit of mankind nor of a
commonwealth. Wherefore, seeing we have granted interest to be
reason, they must not choose lest it put out their light. But as
the council dividing consists of the wisdom of the commonwealth,
so the assembly or council choosing should consist of the
interest of the commonwealth: as the wisdom of the commonwealth
is in the aristocracy, so the interest of the commonwealth is in
the whole body of the people. And whereas this, in case the
commonwealth consist of a whole nation, is too unwieldy a body to
be assembled, this council is to consist of such a representative
as may be equal, and so constituted, as can never contract any
other interest than that of the whole people; the manner whereof,
being such as is best shown by exemplification, I remit to the
model. But in the present case, the six dividing, and the
fourteen choosing, must of necessity take in the whole interest
of the twenty.
Dividing and choosing, in the language of a commonwealth, is
debating and resolving; and whatsoever, upon debate of the
senate, is proposed to the people, and resolved by them, is
enacted by the authority of the fathers, and by the power of the
people, which concurring, make a law.
But the law being made, says Leviathan, "is but words and
paper without the hands and swords of men;" wherefore as these
two orders of a commonwealth, namely, the senate and the people,
are legislative, so of necessity there must be a third to be
executive of the laws made, and this is the magistracy. In which
order, with the rest being wrought up by art, the commonwealth
consists of "the senate proposing, the people resolving, and the
magistracy executing," whereby partaking of the aristocracy as in
the senate, of the democracy as in the people, and of monarchy as
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