For, as I am speaking to men of prudence, who have acted with the greatest glory in the Commonwealth, both in peace and war, I will take care not to allow the subject of the discussion itself to be clearer than my explanation of it. Nor have I undertaken this task with the design of examining all its minuter points, like a school-master; nor will I promise you in the following discourse not to omit any single particular.
Then Lælius said: For my part, I am impatient for exactly that kind of disquisition which you promise us.
XXV. Well, then, said Africanus, a commonwealth is a constitution of the entire people. But the people is not every association of men, however congregated, but the association of the entire number, bound together by the compact of justice, and the communication of utility. The first cause of this association is not so much the weakness of man as a certain spirit of congregation which naturally belongs to him. For the human race is not a race of isolated individuals, wandering and solitary; but it is so constituted that even in the affluence of all things [and with out any need of reciprocal assistance, it spontaneously seeks society].
XXVI. [It is necessary to presuppose] these original seeds, as it were, since we cannot discover any primary establishment of the other virtues, or even of a commonwealth itself. These unions, then, formed by the principle which I have mentioned, established their head-quarters originally in certain central positions, for the convenience of the whole population; and having fortified them by natural and artificial means, they called this collection of houses a city or town, distinguished by temples and public squares. Every people, therefore, which consists of such an association of the entire multitude as I have described, every city which consists of an assemblage of the people, and every commonwealth which embraces every member of these associations, must be regulated by a certain authority, in order to be permanent.
This intelligent authority should always refer itself to that grand first principle which established the Commonwealth. It must be deposited in the hands of one supreme person, or intrusted to the administration of certain dele-
