oint as it rises. It is this ascending and
contracting proportion that adds stability to any government; for when
the departure is sudden from one extreme to another, we may pronounce
that state to be precarious. The nobility therefore are the pillars,
which are reared from among the people, more immediately to support
the throne; and if that falls, they must also be buried under it's
ruins. Accordingly, when in the last century the commons had
determined to extirpate monarchy, they also voted the house of lords
to be useless and dangerous. And since titles of nobility are thus
expedient in the state, it is also expedient that their owners should
form an independent and separate branch of the legislature. If they
were confounded with the mass of the people, and like them had only a
vote in electing representatives, their privileges would soon be borne
down and overwhelmed by the popular torrent, which would effectually
level all distinctions. It is therefore highly necessary that the body
of nobles should have a distinct assembly, distinct deliberations, and
distinct powers from the commons.

THE commons consist of all such men of any property in the kingdom as
have not seats in the house of lords; every one of which has a voice
in parliament, either personally, or by his representatives. In a free
state, every man, who is supposed a free agent, ought to be, in some
measure, his own governor; and therefore a branch at least of the
legislative power should reside in the whole body of the people. And
this power, when the territories of the state are small and it's
citizens easily known, should be exercised by the people in their
aggregate or collective capacity, as was wisely ordained in the petty
republics of Greece, and the first rudiments of the Roman state. But
this will be highly inconvenient, when the public territory is
extended to any considerable degree, and the number of citizens is
encreased. Thus when, after the social war, all the burghers of Italy
were admitted free citizens of Rome, and each had a vote in the public
assemblies, it became impossible to distinguish the spurious from the
real voter, and from that time all elections and popular deliberations
grew tumultuous and disorderly; which paved the way for Marius and
Sylla, Pompey and Caesar, to trample on the liberties of their
country, and at last to dissolve the commonwealth. In so large a state
as ours it is therefore very wisely contrived, that the