in the very act of affociating together: namely, that the whole should protect ail its parts, and that every part should pay obedience to the will of the whole; or, in other words, that the community should guard the rights of each individual member, and that (in return for this protection) each individual should submit to the laws of the community; without which fubmiffion of all it was impoffible that protection could be certainly extended to any. FOR when civil fociety is once formed, government at the fame time results of courfe, as neceffary to preserve and to keep that fociety in order. Unless fome fuperior be consti tuted, whofe commands and decifions all the members are bound to obey, they would still remain as in a state of nature, without any judge upon earth to define their feveral rights, and redress their feveral wrongs. But, as all the members which compofe this fociety were naturally equal, it may be asked, in whofe hands are the reins of government to be entrusted? To this the general answer is easy; but the application of it to particular cafes has occafioned one half of thofe mifchiefs, which are apt to proceed from mifguided political zeal. In general, all mankind will agree that government should be reposed in such perfons, in whom thofe qualities are most likely to be found, the perfection of which is among the attributes of him who is emphatically ftiled the fupreme being; the three grand requifites, I mean, of wisdom, of goodness, and of power: wisdom, to discern the real intereft of the community; goodness, to endeavour always to pursue that real intereft; and ftrength, or power, to carry this knowlege and intention into action. Thefe are the natural foundations of fovereignty, and these are the requifites that ought to be found in every well-constituted frame of government. How the feveral forms of government we now fee in the world at first actually began, is matter of great uncertainty, and has occafioned infinite difputes. It is not my bufinefs or intention to enter into any of them. However they began, or by what right foever they fubfift, there is and must be in all of them a fupreme, irresistible, abfolute, uncontrolled authority, in which the jura fummi imperii, or the rights of fovereignty, refide. And this authority is placed in thofe hands, wherein (according to the opinion of the founders of fuch respective states, either expressly given, or collected from their tacit approbation) the qualities requifite for fupremacy, wif dom, goodness, and power, are the most likely to be found. THE political writers of antiquity will not allow more than three regular forms of government; the first, when the fovereign power is lodged in an aggregate affembly confifting of all the free members of a community, which is called a democracy; the fecond, when it is lodged in a council, compofed of felect members, and then it is ftiled an aristocracy; the laft, when it is entrufted in the hands of a fingle perfon, and then it takes the name of a monarchy. All other species of government, they fay, are either corruptions of, or redu cible to, these three. By the fovereign power, as was before obferved, is meant the making of laws; for wherever that power refides, all others must conform to, and be directed by it, whatever appearance the outward form and administration of the government may put on. For it is at any time in the option of the legiflature to alter that form and administration by a new edict or rule, and to put the execution of the laws into whatever hands it pleases; by conftituting one, or a few, or many executive magistrates; and all the other powers of the state muft obey the legislative power in the discharge of their feveral functions, or else the conftitution is at an end. In a democracy, where the right of making laws refides in the people at large, public virtue, or goodness of intention, is more likely to be found, than either of the other qualities of government. Popular affemblies are frequently foolish in their contrivance, and weak in their execution; but generally mean to do the thing that is right and just, and have always a degree of patriotism or public fpirit. In VOL. I. D arifto aristocracies there is more wifdom to be found, than in the other frames of government; being compofed, or intended to be compofed, of the most experienced citizens: but there is less honesty than in a republic, and lefs ftrength than in a monarchy. A monarchy is indeed the most powerful of any; for by the entire conjunction of the legislative and executive powers all the finews of government are knit together, and united in the hand of the prince: but then there is imminent danger of his employing that strength to improvident or oppreffive purposes. THUS these three fpecies of government have, all of them, their feveral perfections and imperfections. Democracies are ufually the best calculated to direct the end of a law; aristocracies to invent the means by which that end shall be obtained; and monarchies to carry thofe means into execution. And the antients, as was obferved,had in general noidea of any other permanent form of government but thefe three: for though Cicero declares himself of opinion, "effe optime "conftitutam rempublicam, quae ex tribus generibus illis, regali, optimo, et populari, fit modice confufa" yet Tacitus treats this notion of a mixed government, formed out of them all, and partaking of the advantages of each, as a visionary whim, and one that, if effected, could never be lafting or fecure. BUT, happily for us of this ifland, the British conftitution has long remained, and I truft will long continue, a standing exception to the truth of this obfervation. For, as with us, the executive power of the laws is lodged in a fingle perfon, they have all the advantages of ftrength and dispatch, that are to be found in the moft abfolute monarchy and as the legislature of the kingdom is entrusted to three distinct powers, entirely independent of each other; firft, the king; fecondly, the lords fpiritual and temporal, which is an aristocratical affembly of perfons felected for their piety, f In his fragments de rep. 1. 2. « lecta ex bis et conftituta reipublicae forma “laudari facilius quam evenire,vel,fi ewe❝ nit,baud aiuturna esse poteft.” Ann.l.4, I their birth, their wisdom, their valour, or their property; and, thirdly, the house of commons, freely chosen by the people from among themselves, which makes it a kind of democracy; asthis aggregate body, actuated by different springs, and attentive to different interefts, compofes the British parliament, and has the fupreme disposal of everything; there can no inconvenience be attempted by either of the three branches, but will be withstood by one of the other two; each branch being armed with a negative power, fufficient to repel any innovation which it fhall think inexpedient or dangerous. HERE then is lodged the fovereignty of the British conftitution; and lodged as beneficially as is poffible for fociety. For in no other shape could we be fo certain of finding the three great qualities of government fo well and fo happily united. If the fupreme power were lodged in any one of the three branches separately, we must be expofed to the inconveniences of either abfolute monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy; and fo want two of the three principal ingredients of good polity, either virtue, wisdom, or power. If it were lodged in any two of the branches; for inftance, in the king and house of lords, our laws might be providently made, and well executed, but they might not have always the good of the people in view: if lodged in the king and commons, we should want that circumfpection and mediatory caution, which the wifdom of the peers is to afford: if the fupreme rights of legislature were lodged in the two houfes only, and the king had no negative upon their proceedings, they might be tempted to incroach upon the royal prerogative, or perhaps to abolish the kingly office, and thereby weaken (if not totally destroy) the ftrength of the executive power. But the conftitutional government of this ifland is fo admirably tempered and compounded, that nothing can endanger or hurt it, but deftroying the equilibrium of power between one branch of the legislature and the rest. For if ever it should happen that the independence of any one of the three should be loft, or that it fhould become fubfervient to the views of either of the other two, there would fcon D 2 foon be an end of our conftitution. The legislature would be changed from that, which (upon the fuppofition of an original contract, either actual or implied) is presumed to have been originally fet up by the general confent and fundamental act of the fociety: and fuch a change, however effected, is according to Mr. Locke (who perhaps carries his theory too far) at once an entire diffolution of the bands of government; and the people are thereby reduced to a state of anarchy, with liberty to conftitute to themselves a new legislative power. HAVING thus curforily confidered the three usual species of government, and our own fingular constitution, selected and compounded from them all, I proceed to obferve, that, as the power of making laws conftitutes the fupreme authority, fo wherever the fupreme authority in any state refides, it is the right of that authority to make laws; that is, in the words of our definition, to prefcribe the rule of civil action. And this may be discovered from the very end and inftitution of civil states. For a ftate is a collective body, composed of a multitude of individuals, united for their fafety and convenience, and intending to act together as one man. If it therefore is to act as one man, it ought to act by one uniform will. But, inafmuch as political communities are made up of many natural perfons, each of whom has his particular will and inclination, thefe feveral wills cannot by any natural union be joined together, or tempered and difpofed into a lafting harmony, fo as to conftitute and produce that one uniform will of the whole. It can therefore be no otherwife produced than by a political union; by the confent of all perfons to submit their own private wills to the will of one man, or of one or more affemblies of men, to whom the fupreme authority is entrusted: and this will of that one man, or affemblage of men, is in different ftates, according to their different conftitutions, understood to be law. THUS far as to the right of the fupreme power to make laws; but farther, it is it's duty likewife. For fince the reOn government, part ii. §. 212. fpective |