BOOK IX.
Of Laws in the relation they bear to a defensive Force.
CHAP. I.
In what manner Republics provide for their Safety.
Book IX.
Chap. 1.IF a republic is small, it is destroyed by a foreign force; if it be large, it is ruined by an internal imperfection[1].
To this twofold inconvenience both Democracies and Aristocracies are equally liable, and that whether they be good or bad. The evil is in the very thing itself; and no form can redress it.
It is therefore very probable that mankind would have been at length obliged to live constantly under the government of a single person, had they not contrived a kind of constitution that has all the internal advantages of a republican, together with the external force of a monarchical, government. I mean a confederate republic.
This form of government is a convention by which several small states agree to become members of a larger one which they intend to form. It is a kind of assemblage of societies, that constitute a new one, capable of increasing by means of new associations, till they arrive to such a degree of power,
- ↑ Fato potentiœ, non suâ vi nixæ. Tacit.
