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CHAPTER. X.
Of the Forms of a Common-wealth.
Sect. 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 exe cuting 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.
Sect. 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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The text digitized by Dave Gowan.
John Locke's "Second Treatise of Government" was published in 1690. The complete unabridged text has been republished several times in edited
commentaries. This is based on the paperback book, "John Locke Second Treatise of Government", Edited, with an Introduction, By C.B. McPherson, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis and Cambridge, 1980. None of the McPherson edition is included in the Etext; only the original words contained in the 1690 Locke text is included. The 1690 edition text is free of copyright.
This text is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN, posted to Wiretap 1 Jul 94.
©Copyright, 2000, Mike Rosenberg
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