Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A87139
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Valerius and Publicola: or, The true form of a popular commonwealth extracted e puris naturalibus. By James Harrington.
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Harrington, James, 1611-1677.
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1659
(1659)
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Wing H824; Thomason E1005_13; ESTC R202585
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21,762
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40
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into speedy and serious consideration the irrefragable truth of the Premises and what thereupon must assuredly follow that is either the institution of a Commonwealth in the whole People of England without exception or with exception for a time of so few as may be by way of a Senate and a numerous Assembly of the People to the ends and for the respective Functions aforesaid or the inevitable ruine of this Nation which God of his mercy avert And your Petitioner shall pray c. Val. I would it had been delivered Pub. Look you if this had been presented to the House I intended to have added this other Paper and to have printed them together The Petitioner to the Reader Reader I Say not that the form contained in the Petition if we had it and no more would be perfect but that without thus much which rightly introduced introduceth the rest there neither is was nor can be any such thing as a Commonwealth or Government without a King and Lords in Nature Where there is a co-ordinate Senate there must be a King or it falleth instantly by the People as the King failing the House of Peers fell by the Commons Where there is a Senate not elective by the People there is perpetual feud between the Senate and the People as in Rome To introduce either of these causes is certainly and inevitably to introduce one of these effects and if so then who are Cavaliers I leave you to judge hereafter But to add farther reason unto experience All civil power among us not onely by Declaration of Parliament but by the nature of propriety is in and from the people Where the power is in the people there the Senate can Legitimately be no more unto the Popular Assembly then my Counsel at Law is to me that is auxilium non imperium a necessary aid not a competitor or rival in power Where the aids of the people become their rivals or competitors in power there their Shepherds become Wolves their Peace discord and their Government ruine But to impose a select or co-ordinate Senate upon the people is to give them rivals and competitors in power Some perhaps such is the temper of the times will say That so much humane confidence as is expressed especially in the Petition is Atheistical But how were it Atheistical if I should as confidently foretel that a Boy must expire in non-age or become a man I Prophesie no otherwise and this kind of Prophecie is also of God by those Rules of his providence which in the known Government of the World are infallible In the right observation application of these consisteth all humane wisdom and we read Eccles. 9. 14. that a poor man delivered a City by his wisdom yet was this poor man forgotten But if the premises of this Petition fail or one part of the conclusion come not to pass accordingly let me hit the other mark of this ambitious Address and remain a fool upon Record in Parliament to all Posterity Val. Thou-boy and yet I hope well of thy reputation Pub. Would it were but as good now as it will be when I can make no use of it Val. The major of the Petition is in some other of your writings and I remember some objections which have been made against it As that à non esse nec fuisse non datur argumentum ad non posse Pub. Say that in English Val. What if I cannot are not you bound to answer a thing though it cannot be said in English Pub. No truly Val. Well I will say it in English then Though there neither be any house of gold nor ever were any house of gold yet there may be an house of gold Pub. Right but then à non esse nec fuisse in natura datur argumentum ad non posse in natura Val. I hope you can say this in English too Pub. That I can now you have taught me If there were no such thing as gold in nature there never could be any house of gold Val. Softly The frame of a Government is as much in Art and as little in Nature as the frame of an house Pub. Both softly and surely The materials of a Government are as much in Nature and as little in Art as the materials of an house Now as far forth as Art is necessarily disposed by the nature of her foundation or materials so far forth it is in Art as in Nature Val. What call you the foundation or the materials of Government Pub. That which I have long since proved and you granted The balance the distribution of propriety and the power thence naturally deriving which as it is in one in a few or in all doth necessarily dispose of the form or frame of the Government accordingly Val. Be the foundation or materials of an house what they will the frame or superstructures may be diversly wrought up or shapen and so may those of a Common-wealth Pub. True but let an house be never so diversly wrought up or shapen it must consist of a roof and walls Val. That 's certain Pub. And so must a Commonwealth of a Senate and of a popular Assembly which is the sum of the Minor in the Petition Val. The Mathematicians say They will not be quarrelsome but in their Sphere there are things altogether new in the World as the present posture of the Heavens is and as was the Star in Cassiopoeia Pub. Valerius if the Major of the Petition extend as far as is warranted by Solomon I mean that there is nothing new under the Sun what new things there may be or have been above the Sun will make little to the present purpose Val. It is true but if you have no more to say They will take this but for shifting Pub. Where there is Sea as between Sicily and Naples there was antiently Land and where there is Land as in Holland there was antiently Sea Val. What then Pub. Why then the present posture of the earth is other then it hath been yet is the earth no new thing but consisteth of Land and Sea as it did always so whatever the present posture of the Heavens be they consist of Star and Firmament as they did always Val. What will you say then to the Star in Cassiopoeia Pub. Why I say If it consisted of the same matter with other Stars it was no new thing in nature but a new thing in Cassiopoeia as were there a Commonwealth in England it would be no new thing in nature but a new thing in England Val. The Star you will say in Cassiopoeia to have been a new thing in nature must have been no Star because a Star is not a new thing in nature Pub. Very good Val. You run upon the matter but the newness in the Star was in the manner of the generation Pub. At Putzuoli neer Naples I have seen a Mountain that rose up from under water in one night and poured
a good part of the Lake antiently called Lucrine into the Sea Val. VVhat will you infer from hence Pub. VVhy that the new and extraordinary generation of a Star or of a Mountain no more causeth a Star or a Mountain to be a new thing in nature then the new and extraordinary generation of a Commonwealth causeth a Commonwealth to be a new thing in nature Aristole reports that the Nobility of Tarantum being cut off in a Battel that Commonwealth became popular And if the Powder-Plot in England had destroyed the King and the Nobility it is possible that popular Government might have risen up in England as the Mountain did at Putzuoli Yet for all these would there not have been any new thing in nature Val. Some new thing through the blending of unseen causes there may seem to be in shuffling but nature will have her course there is no other then the old game Pub. Valerius let it rain or be fair weather the Sun to the dissolution of nature shall ever rise but it is now set and I apprehend the mist Val. Dear Publicola your health is mine own I bid you goodnight Pub. Goodnight to you Valerius Val. One word more Publicola pray make me a present of those same Papers and with your leave and license I will make use of my memory to commit the rest of this Discourse unto writing and Print it Pub. They are at your disposing Val. I will not do it as hath been done but with your name to it Pub. VVhether way you like best most noble Valerius Octob. 22. 1659. A sufficient Answer to Mr. Stubbe THere is a Book newly put forth by Mr. Stubbe intituled A Letter to an Officer c. which in brief comes to this That he would have a select Senate for Life consisting of Independents Anabaptists Fifth Monarchy-men and Quakers for which he is pleased to quote Deut. 23. that he would have all such as adhered unto the Parliament against Sir G. Booth to be inrolled as the people of England That he would have all the rest of the people of England to be Holoâ—â— Gibeâ—niter or Paysams This Book I have read and I have heard a Tale of one who to get something pretended the shewing of a strange Beaâ—â— an Horse and no Horse with the Tayl standing where the Head should stand which when all came to all was a Mare with her Tayl ty'd to the Manger the lively Emblem of an Oligarchy Mr. Stubbe pretending to shew his Learning takes those things as it were changing the sex of them which I have written and in his writings turns their tails unto the Manger Now this as to the unlearned Reader is that upon which it is to no purpose to move any controversie and as to the learned I need no more then appeal whether in their proper stables or in the best Authors the heads of them stand as I have set them or the tails as Mr. Stubbe hath set them Only let me say That as to a select Senate understanding thereby a Senate not elected by the people there is no more of this in all story then the Senate of Rome only Whence it is undeniable by any man of common understanding that a select Senate bringeth in a select interest that a select interest causeth feud between that select interest and the common interest and so between the Senate and the popular Assembly which coal in England it is fitter for such as Mr. Stubbe and his Patrons to blow then for such as understand story Government or common honesty But their Reasons who decry the possibility or plausibility of such Acts or Orders as these it pleaseth him to call high Rodomontado's Now which are the higher Rodomontado's these or those which he useth in flourishing the Justitia of Anagon a patch in a Monarchy which his design is to translate by a select Senate into a Commonwealth I leave any man to judge even by the testimony of his own Authour Blanca and in a place cited by himself though not so well rendered Our ancestors saith Blanca have three ways secured our liberties by the Justitia by the great POWER of the Ricos hombres now he speaks and by the priviledge of the union The first was a civil and forensick curb a gown the second was a domestick and more restraining one I think so the purse and thence the power the third popular and warlike an excellent Militia Now let any man say even after Blanca if without the Nobility in whom was the balance of this Monarchy and their retainers and dependants of which consisted the Militia this Court of the poor Gown-man called Justitia must not have been a very likely thing to restrain a Prince or consider whether without this same Mummery of the Arragonians Houses of Peers and of Commons in other Monarchies have not every whit as much restrained their Kings and more seeing this toy as at every election of the Magistrate called Justitia it received not breath but from a King was blown away by a King His other instances as the thirty six Curators of the Publick appointed unto Lewis the eleventh of France by the three Estates and the twenty five select Peers given unto King John of England were like shifts and had less effect Security in Government must be from entireness of form and entireness of form must be from soundness or rightness of foundation But Mr. Stubbe founding himself upon the Authority of Aristotle That the Western parts are not capable of a right Commonwealth is declaredly for a wrong Commonwealth in England He minds not that Venice for the capacity is a righter Commonwealth then was ever any in Greece nor that the present State of England is of a far different if not a quite contrary nature to that of the Western parts in the time of Aristotle FINIS