Fourth Court Maxim: Monarchy is not secure unless the nobility be suppressed, effiminated, and corrupted

Philalethes: one of our principal maxims is to bring the nobility very low, never thinking monarchy well secured till they be suppressed, effeminated, and corrupted.

Eunomius: I am much amazed to hear this, for we that live farther from court do believe that monarchy and nobility so strictly hang together that one does not well subsist without the other. And nothing is more unreasonable than that monarchy should endeavour to weaken that order which does principally support *its* greatness.

Philalethes: though you seem a good examiner of things, I see you sometimes take up opinions upon trust | as well as others. You hear us speak much of men of honour and quality, and you believe all those to be noble men that have great titles and blue ribands about their necks. These are for the most part creatures of the court, men of low birth and lower fortunes.

Eunomius: what use can you make of such?

Philalethes: very much, for by raising them to the highest places who can pretend to no other merit than extreme obsequiousness to his majesty and absolute devotion to his interest, we show to the ancient nobility and others what course they must take if they will arrive at preferment.

Tenth Court Maxim: What advantages the Court may draw from Spain and Holland or the United Provinces

Philalethes: there is such a perpetual contrariety between the interests of Spain and France, that he that unites with France *must break with Spain*: It is easy to know how he should proceed with Spain as to the public. But courtiers may contrive that some hold correspondence with one, some with the other, that they may have constant pay and presents from both.

Eunomius: England never had in the least any dependence on France or on any other power, since England, Spain, France, and | the best part of the known world was emancipated by the dissolution of the Roman empire. The interest of every nation that cannot pretend to a universal monarchy or more limited superiority over its neighbours, is to keep any others from attaining it and maintain its own freedom and independency on any for protection, as it is best for any private man that cannot hope to be king to endeavour there shall be none. Freedom is the greatest advantage next to dominion. He that cannot command, ought to endeavour to preserve himself from being commanded. If he cannot gain power over others, to retain that over himself. England cannot pretend to such hopes of a universal monarchy as France and Spain have long contended for.

Eighth Court Maxim: The corruption of lawyers is useful to the king

Philalethes: in our last conference we discoursed of bishops, of the right of judging and punishing heretics and blasphemers, and of prescribing rules in matters of religion. Let us now consider what use is to be made of lawyers depending on the court.

Eunomius: you will much oblige me to let me know whom you comprehend under the name of lawyers, how you bring them to a dependence on the court, and what advantage is expected by them.

Philalethes: the name is given by some only to pleaders. But we give it in general to all that live by the practice of it, together with all attorneys or offices of court, who have a united interest as one body. And little industry is required to bring them to depend on the king.

Secondly, the way has been made long since, and they that enter upon the profession must follow it. There were anciently two great faults in our law. One, that being framed by men that loved their liberty and country, it much favoured the subject and restrained the power of kings within narrow limits. The other, that our ancestors through a virtuous simplicity had made those laws so plain and easy, that when the king stood in need of a judgment in favour of prerogative, or to take away a suspected head, it either could not be gained at all, or so as the judges, | by plainly perverting the sense of the law, were in danger of punishment.

Eunomius: tell me, Philalethes, whither you go in so much haste.

Philalethes: I can more easily tell you from whence I come than whither I go; for being wearied with business at court, I do now only seek a few hours' refreshment and do not much care where I find it.

Eunomius: if that be your only design, I may (without the necessity of making an apology) offer to accompany you and, if you please, will lead you into a garden into which I do usually retire when I would avoid company.

Philalethes: your company is ever very pleasing unto me, and I have more reason than ordinary now to seek it, since you, perhaps, who are engaged in none of our affairs, look upon them without passion and may be able to explain some things that very much perplex me.

Eunomius: I cannot promise unto my self so much happiness. But if you find any ease in pouring out your cares into a friend's bosom, you may be sure of all the assistance and service that is in my power, and that whatsoever you deliver unto me, shall be most faithful*ly* closed up in secrecy, until you command me to draw it forth.

Philalethes: I have ever found in you all the qualities of a perfect friend, and though I have been long enough at court to conform myself for the most part to the rules that govern there, | I have yet I know not what obscure remembrance of virtue and piety that makes me esteem persons who are so eminent in both as you are.

Second Court Maxim: Monarchy ought to be absolute and hereditary

Philalethes: the defects you have mentioned seem rather to proceed from the ill constitution of some monarchies.

Eunomius: what is requisite to the constitution of that you esteem perfect monarchy?

Philalethes: that it be absolute and, secondly, hereditary.

Eunomius: what induces you to believe absolute and hereditary monarchy best?

Philalethes: there is great difficulty in governing a people. The governor needs all help. Absolute power is necessary that his commands be not contradicted by the peevishness or ignorance of those who understand them not, or would hinder him from doing that that is good. Secondly, reason and experience show that resolutions are more speedy, executions more vigorous, when determined by one man than | when they depend upon such tedious disputes as are usual in commonwealths, where many give their opinions. And the most ignorant are often most positive in asserting their opinions. Experience also shows that those resolutions or counsels are steadily and constantly prosecuted which proceed from the prudence of one man and are directed to the interest of him and his family, whereas the counsels of commonwealths change according to the humour of those that happen to be in power.

Thirdly, nothing is more conducive to the good of a state than the incessant care of the governor perpetually intent to procure the good of it, which is most seen in hereditary monarchies, the monarch looking on the state as his patrimony descending to his heirs.

Fourteenth Court Maxim: handling this question by way of conclusion to the whole discourse: Whether monarchical government be simply and universally unlawful

Eunomius: It appears you hate and fear none so much as virtuous and godly men. You suspect no meetings so much as those that are for the most godly ends. And consequently, you endeavour to hinder the things and destroy the persons you hate and fear. Your fear and hatred against them for being good and godly, does denominate you to be contrary; since none hate or desire to destroy any but such who are contrary to themselves. Nor can this blood be washed off by pretending you persecute them as seditious, nor | as godly, since your rage is evident against those who can be accused of no crime but godliness. And your laws are not against those who meet seditiously and tumultuously, but such as have no other end but preaching and praying. This is sedition to you. The poor Quakers, that desire nothing but to be sufferers for conscience sake, renouncing all force, deserve your hatred, because they call upon God, as Daniel did though the king forbad it. There is nothing I less wonder at in your proceedings than this. You have reason to fear that spirit, whose gifts godly men do enjoy, may be a link of union amongst them to your destruction.

Three crucial elements influenced Sidney's political writings: his extraordinary career, his bold character, and no doubt his particular cultural background. Court maxims, discussed and refelled was written while Sidney was in his forties and experiencing a large measure of adversity during his self-inflicted exile to the Continent. Sidney intended this text to unite English republicans, and possibly their Dutch counterparts as well, into an effort to re-establish the Commonwealth in England. But it would be inappropriate to look at it as just a ‘work of propaganda’ (Blair Worden, ‘The commonwealth kidney of Algernon Sidney’, Journal of British Studies, 24 (1985) 1–40, p. 10). A remarkably uncompromising text, it contains ‘a more complete exposure of the assumptions behind, and the tensions within, Sidney's thought as a whole’ (Jonathan Scott, Algernon Sidney and the English republic, 1623–1677 (Cambridge, 1988), p. 7) than his later Discourses concerning government which, in more direct response to the actual circumstances of the 1680s, was to be published in 1698. The Court maxims abound with classical and biblical references, side by side with machiavellian themes and reverberations of Sidney's own education as a squire, providing the context for his view of English history and the nature of politics. The tragedy of the Court maxims, however, was that its author was already in the process of losing ground as a politician among English exiles on the Continent because of his abrasive character, while the shifting political situation made its publication inappropriate and left it gathering dust in the archives for more than two centuries.

Eleventh Court Maxim: The United Provinces are ever to be esteemed enemies

Philalethes: next to those things of universal practice, our corrupting of servants to betray their masters, setting wives against their husbands, children against their parents, and employing spies and trepanners in all places; knowing that those that are divided among themselves can never hurt us; there is nothing we more rely upon than our bishops at home and foreign helps from the king of France. Your reasons make me suspect neither of these will long secure us from ruin. But I will proceed to the examining *of* other points of opinion and practice amongst us.

We look on the United Provinces as immortal, irreconcilable enemies, and by all ways imaginable we seek their ruin.

Eunomius: is not the narrowness of their hand, seldom exercised in giving bribes, the chief cause of your enmity against them?

Philalethes: that may be something. But we also look on their power and riches, the security, happiness, | and prosperity they enjoy in a commonwealth, as a most pernicious example to England. Others leave their native countries, abounding in things necessary or delightful to man, to seek new seats in Holland, of all Europe the most unwholesome, unpleasant, unprovided, of all things requisite to the life of man; yet through good government and liberty of traffic so rich, powerful, and prosperous that no state in Europe dares singly contest with it.

On the stupidity of the civilised nations which have forgotten or scorned the two branches of research which lead to the theory of destinies: the study of Agricultural Association and the study of Passionate Attraction.

And on the dire results of this stupidity which, for 2,300 years, has needlessly prolonged the period of social chaos, i.e. savage, barbaric and civilised societies, which are far from being the destiny of the human race.

If we consider the wealth of great minds Civilisation has produced, especially during the eighteenth century, it is easy to imagine that they have exhausted all areas of investigation, and that, far from hoping for great discoveries, we cannot expect even insignificant ones.

This prejudice will be overcome: men will learn that the enlightenment that has been gained so far amounts to scarcely a quarter of that which remains still to be acquired, and which will be acquired in toto by means of the Theory of the Four Movements. It is the key to all the discoveries of which the human mind is capable; it will rapidly initiate us into knowledge which, at the slow rate of current methods, could take another ten thousand years of study to attain.

The announcement of this theory is bound to arouse mistrust in the first instance, simply because it promises to raise men to an understanding of the destinies.

The progressive household I am going to describe is a domestic order belonging to the seventh and twenty-sixth periods, occupying a position midway between the incoherent household of barbarism and Civilisation and the combined household which reigns during the eighteen periods of universal harmony.

In the progressive household, men [and women] enjoy such an agreeable and comfortable existence that it would be impossible to persuade any of them to embark on the kind of permanent marriage which isolated households require.

Before speaking of the customs which arise as a result of the absence of marriage, I shall examine the reasons for civilised man's blind prejudice in favour of permanent marriage.

It must be remembered that I admit the necessity of this bond in Civilisation and that I am criticising it by comparison with the new social order, in which different circumstances will call for a freedom in love which is inadmissible in our society. It must also be remembered that on matters of marriage, household life and other questions you should assume an exception of one-eighth from my general assertions.

Order of matters dealt with in the First Account

What suspicions are likely to be aroused in people's minds as they reflect on this outline of past and future revolutions! At first they will be torn between curiosity and distrust, attracted by the idea of penetrating the mysteries of nature but afraid of being taken in by a clever fiction. Reason will tell them to doubt, while passion urges them to believe. Amazed to see a mere mortal unrolling the map of divine decrees before their eyes, providing a survey of eternity past and future, they will succumb to curiosity, they will tremble at the idea that a man has finally been able to

and before the announcement of the experiment, even before the publication of my theory, I may well have more disciples to calm down than sceptics to convince.

The idea of the General Destinies I have just sketched in is too superficial not to provoke hundreds of objections, all of which I can foresee because they have frequently been raised in lectures where I have been able to provide much fuller answers than I am able to do in this treatise. So it would be quite pointless for me to try to allay these doubts until after I have explained the mechanism of progressive Series, which will clarify whatever is obscure and settle all conceivable objections.

Until then I shall do no more than remind you that the first two treatises will not be concerned with the theory of Social Movement.