第40章 Chapter 20 Of the Requisites to the Constitution o

I. That part of this treatise which is already past, hath been wholly spent, in the consideration of the natural power, and the natural estate of man; namely of his cognition and passions in the first eleven chapters; and how from thence proceed his actions in the twelfth; how men know one another's minds in the thirteenth; in what estate men's passions set them in the fourteenth; what estate they are directed unto by the dictates of reason, that is to say, what be the principal articles of the law of nature, in the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and lastly how a multitude of persons natural are united by covenants into one person civil or body politic. In this part therefore shall be considered, the nature of a body politic, and the laws thereof, otherwise called civil laws. And whereas it hath been said in the last chapter, and last section of the former part, that there be two ways of erecting a body politic; one by arbitrary institution of many men assembled together, which is like a creation out of nothing by human wit; the other by compulsion, which is as it were a generation thereof out of natural force; I shall first speak of such erection of a body politic, as proceedeth from the assembly and consent of a multitude.

2. Having in this place to consider a multitude of men about to unite themselves into a body politic, for their security, both against one another, and against common enemies; and that by covenants, the knowledge of what covenants, they must needs make, dependeth on the knowledge of the persons, and the knowledge of their end. First, for their persons they are many, and (as yet) not one; nor can any action done in a multitude of people met together, be attributed to the multitude, or truly called the action of the multitude, unless every man's hand, and every man's will, (not so much as one excepted) have concurred thereto. For multitude, though in their persons they run together, yet they concur not always in their designs. For even at that time when men are in tumult, though they agree a number of them to one mischief, and a number of them to another; yet, in the whole, they are amongst themselves in the state of hostility, and not of peace; like the seditious Jews besieged in Jerusalem, that could join against their enemies, and yet fight amongst themselves; whensoever therefore any man saith, that a number of men hath done any act: it is to be understood, that every particular man in that number hath consented thereunto, and not the greatest part only. Secondly, though thus assembled with intention to unite themselves, they are yet in that estate in which every man hath right to everything, and consequently, as hath been said, chap. XIV, sect. 10, in an estate of enjoying nothing: and therefore meum and tuum hath no place amongst them.

3. The first thing therefore they are to do, is expressly every man to consent to something by which they may come nearer to their ends; which can be nothing else imaginable but this: that they allow the wills of the major part of their whole number, or the wills of the major part of some certain number of men by them determined and named; or lastly the will of some one man, to involve and be taken for the wills of every man. And this done they are united, and a body politic. And if the major part of their whole number be supposed to involve the wills of all the particulars, then are they said to be a DEMOCRACY, that is to say a government wherein the whole number, or so many of them as please, being assembled together, are the sovereign, and every particular man a subject. If the major part of a certain number of men named or distinguished from the rest, be supposed to involve the wills of every one of the particulars, then are they said to be an OLIGARCHY, or ARISTOCRACY; which two words signify the same thing, together with the divers passions of those that use them; for when the men that be in that office please, they are called an aristocracy, otherwise an oligarchy; wherein those, the major part of which declare the wills of the whole multitude, being assembled, are the sovereign, and every man severally a subject. Lastly if their consent be such, that the will of one man, whom they name, shall stand for the wills of them all, then is their government or union called a MONARCHY; and that one man the sovereign, and every of the rest a subject.

4. And those several sorts of unions, governments, and subjections of man's will, may be understood to be made, either absolutely, that is to say, for all future time, or for a time limited only. But forasmuch as we speak here of a body politic, instituted for the perpetual benefit and defence of them that make it; which therefore men desire should last for ever, I will omit to speak of those that be temporary, and consider those that be for ever.