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Sec. 132. THE
majority having, as has been
shewed, upon men's first uniting into society, the whole power of the community naturally
in them, may employ all that power in making laws for the community from time to time, and
executing those laws by officers of their own appointing; and then the form of the
government is a perfect democracy: or else may put the power of making laws into the hands
of a few select men, and their heirs or successors; and then it is an oligarchy: or else
into the hands of one man, and then it is a monarchy: if to him and his heirs, it is an
hereditary monarchy: if to him only for life, but upon his death the power only of
nominating a successor to return to them; an elective monarchy. And so accordingly of
these the community may make compounded and mixed forms of government, as they think good.
And if the legislative power be at first given by the majority to one or more persons only
for their lives, or any limited time, and then the supreme power to revert to them again;
when it is so reverted, the community may dispose of it again anew into what hands they
please, and so constitute a new form of government: for the form of government depending
upon the placing the supreme power, which is the legislative, it being impossible to
conceive that an inferior power should prescribe to a superior, or any but the supreme
make laws, according as the power of making laws is placed, such is the form of the
common-wealth.
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Sec. 133. By common-wealth, I must be understood all along
to mean, not a democracy, or any form of government, but any independent community, which
the Latines signified by the word civitas, to which the word which best answers in our
language, is common-wealth, and most properly expresses such a society of men, which
community or city in English does not; for there may be subordinate communities in a
government; and city amongst us has a quite different notion from common-wealth: and
therefore, to avoid ambiguity, I crave leave to use the word common-wealth in that sense,
in which I find it used by king James the first; and I take it to be its genuine
signification; which if any body dislike, I consent with him to change it for a better.
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