thing in it which is apparent, by
what went before, to have been besides the course of nature, and by what
followed.

"For the King having no other foundation than the calamities of the
people, so often beaten by their enemies, that despairing of themselves
they were contented with any change, if he had peace as in the days of
Solomon, left but a slippery throne to his successor, as appeared
by Rehoboam. And the agrarian, notwithstanding the monarchy thus
introduced, so faithfully preserved the root of that commonwealth, that
it shot forth oftener and by intervals continued longer than any other
government, as may be computed from the institution of the same by
Joshua, 1,465 years before Christ, to the total dissolution of it,
which happened in the reign of the emperor Adrian, 135 years after the
incarnation. A people planted upon an equal agrarian, and holding to it,
if they part with their liberty, must do it upon good-will, and make but
a bad title of their bounty. As to instance yet further in that which is
proposed by the present order to this nation, the standard whereof is
at L2,000 a year; the whole territory of Oceana being divided by this
proportion, amounts to 5,000 lots. So the lands of Oceana being thus
distributed, and bound to this distribution, can never fall to fewer
than 5,000 proprietors. But 5,000 proprietors so seized will not agree
to break the agrarian, for that were to agree to rob one another; nor to
bring in a king, because they must maintain him, and can have no benefit
by him; nor to exclude the people, because they can have as little by
that, and must spoil their militia. So the commonwealth continuing upon
the balance proposed, though it should come into 5,000 hands, can never
alter, and that it should ever come into 5,000 hands is as improbable as
anything in the world that is not altogether impossible.

"My lord's other considerations are more private, as that, this order
destroys families; which is as if one should lay the ruin of some
ancient castle to the herbs which usually grow out of them, the
destruction of those families being that indeed which naturally produced
this order. For we do not now argue for that which we would have, but
for that which we are already possessed of, as would appear if a note
were but taken of all such as have at this day above L2,000 a year in
Oceana. If my lord should grant (and I will put it with the most) that
they who are proprietors in land, exceedi