has been frequent in Spain, France, Germany, and other monarchies
of this kind; wherefore monarchy by a nobility is no perfect
government.
For the proof of the third assertion: Leviathan yields it to
me, that there is no other commonwealth but monarchical or
popular; wherefore if no monarchy be a perfect government, then
either there is no perfect government, or it must be popular, for
which kind of constitution I have something more to say than
Leviathan has said or ever will be able to say for monarchy. As,
First, that it is the government that was never conquered by
any monarch, from the beginning of the world to this day, for if
the commonwealths of Greece came under the yoke of the Kings of
Macedon, they were first broken by themselves.
Secondly, that it is the government that has frequently led
mighty monarchs in triumph.
Thirdly, that it is the government, which, if it has been
seditious, it has not been so from any imperfection in the kind,
but in the particular constitution; which, wherever the like has
happened, must have been unequal.
Fourthly, that it is the government, which, if it has been
anything near equal, was never seditious; or let him show me what
sedition has happened in Lacedaemon or Venice.
Fifthly, that it is the government, which, attaining to
perfect equality, has such a libration in the frame of it, that
no man living can show which way any man or men, in or under it,
can contract any such interest or power as should be able to
disturb the commonwealth with sedition, wherefore an equal
commonwealth is that only which is without flaw and contains in
it the full perfection of government. But to return.
By what has been shown in reason and experience, it may
appear, that though commonwealths in general be governments of
the senate proposing, the people resolving, and the magistracy
executing, yet some are not so good at these orders as others,
through some impediment or defect in the frame, balance, or
capacity of them, according to which they are of divers kinds.
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