Abstract

The revival of interest in James Harrington's political theory which has occurred in recent years has not led to a resolution of the puzzle about his Agrarian Law. That puzzle requires unfolding how Harrington expected that the Agrarian would achieve his ambitions for a stable commonwealth. This paper suggests one explanation of the difficulties encountered, by focusing on ambiguities in Harrington's terminology and on inadequacies in his method.While we cannot provide a convincing explanation of how the Agrarian worked, we can understand how Harrington was confused and confusing in his description of it.Harrington's principle of balance purports to show that the distribution of political power in a polity follows that of property. His Agrarian law is designed to maintain the political system of Oceana, his projected common-wealth. To understand the complexities of the Agrarian, we need to examine Harrington's method , his views on inheritance and the relative importance of different forms of property . The last section relates the problems identified in these three parts to the difficulty of understanding the Agrarian