which is capable thereof, or
only in some particulars, but in others not? for it is possible that the
citizens may have their wives, and children, and goods in common, as
in Plato's Commonwealth; for in that Socrates affirms that all these
particulars ought to be so. Which then shall we prefer? the custom which
is already established, or the laws which are proposed in that treatise?

CHAPTER II

Now as a community of wives is attended with many other difficulties, so
neither does the cause for which he would frame his government in this
manner seem agreeable to reason, nor is it capable of producing that end
which he has proposed, and for which he says it ought to take place; nor
has he given any particular directions for putting it in practice. Now
I also am willing to agree with Socrates in the principle which he
proceeds upon, and admit that the city ought to be one as much as
possible; and yet it is evident that if it is contracted too much, it
will be no longer a city, for that necessarily supposes a multitude; so
that if we proceed in this manner, we shall reduce a city to a family,
and a family to a single person: for we admit that a family is one in a
greater degree than a city, and a single person than a family; so that
if this end could be obtained, it should never be put in practice, as it
would annihilate the city; for a city does not only consist of a large
number of inhabitants, but there must also be different sorts; for were
they all alike, there could be no city; for a confederacy and a city are
two different things; for a confederacy is valuable from its numbers,
although all those who compose it are men of the same calling; for this
is entered into for the sake of mutual defence, as we add an additional
weight to make the scale go down. The same distinction prevails between
a city and a nation when the people are not collected into separate
villages, but live as the Arcadians. Now those things in which a city
should be one are of different sorts, and in preserving an alternate
reciprocation of power between these, the safety thereof consists (as
I have already mentioned in my treatise on Morals), for amongst freemen
and equals this is absolutely necessary; for all cannot govern at the
same time, but either by the year, or according to some other regulation
or time, by which means every one in his turn will be in office; as
if the shoemakers and carpenters should exchange occupations, and not