The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 04 · Thomas Hobbes
CHAPTER II.
1. Democracy precedeth all other, &c. 2.. The sovereign people covenanteth not with the subjects. 3. The sovereign, &c. cannot, &c. do injury, &c. 4. The faults of the sovereign people, &c. 5. Democracy, &c. an aristocracy of orators. 6. Aristocracy how made. 7. The body of the _optimates_ not properly said to injure the subjects. 8. The election of the _optimates_, &c. 9. An elective king, &c. 10. A conditional king, &c. 11. The word people equivocal. 12. Obedience discharged by release, &c. 13. How such releases are to be understood. 14. Obedience discharged by exile: 15. By conquest: 16. By ignorance of the right of succession. [Sidenote: Democracy precedeth all other, &c.] 1. Having spoken in general concerning instituted policy in the former chapter, I come in this, to speak of the sorts thereof in special, how every of them is instituted. The first in order of time of these three sorts, is democracy; and it must be so of necessity, because an aristocracy and a monarchy, require nomination of persons agreed upon, which agreement in a great multitude of men, must consist in the consent of the major part; and where the votes of the major part involve the votes of the rest, there is actually a democracy. [Sidenote: The sovereign people covenanteth not with the subjects.]
2. In the making of a democracy, there passeth no covenant between the sovereign, and any subject. For while the democracy is a making, there is no sovereign with whom to contract. For it cannot be imagined, that the multitude should contract with itself, or with any one man, or number of men, parcel of itself, to make itself sovereign; nor that a multitude, considered as one aggregate, can give itself anything which before it had not. Seeing then that sovereignty democratical is not conferred by the covenant of any multitude, which supposeth union and sovereignty already made, it resteth, that the same be conferred by the particular covenants of every several man; that is to say, every man with every man, for and in consideration of the benefit of his own peace and defence, covenanteth to stand to and obey whatsoever the major part of their whole number, or the major part of such a number of them, as shall be pleased to assemble at a certain time and place, shall determine and command. And this is that which giveth being to a democracy, wherein the sovereign assembly was called of the Greeks, by the name of _Demus_, that is, the people, from whence cometh democracy. So that, where to the supreme and independent court, every man may come that will, and give his vote, there the sovereign is called the people.
4. And when it happeneth, that the people by plurality of voices, decree or command anything contrary to the law of God or nature, though the decree and command be the act of every man, not only present in the assembly, but also absent from it; yet is not the injustice of the decree, the injustice of every particular man, but only of those men, by whose express suffrages, the decree or command was passed. For a body politic, as it is a fictitious body, so are the faculties and will thereof fictitious also. But to make a particular man unjust, which consisteth of a body and soul natural, there is required a natural and very will. [Sidenote: Democracy, &c. an aristocracy of orators.] 5. In all democracies, though the right of sovereignty be in the assembly, which is virtually the whole body; yet the use thereof is always in one, or a few particular men. For in such great assemblies, as those must be, whereinto every man may enter at his pleasure, there is no means any ways to deliberate and give counsel what to do, but by long and set orations, whereby to every man there is more or less hope given, to incline and sway the assembly to their own ends. In a multitude of speakers therefore, where always either one is eminent alone, or a few being equal amongst themselves, are eminent above the rest, that one or few must of necessity sway the whole. Insomuch, that a democracy, in effect, is no more than an aristocracy of orators, interrupted sometimes with the temporary monarchy of one orator.
In this case, the power of the people is dissolved, or not; if dissolved, then after the death of him that is chosen, there is no man bound to stand to the decrees of them that shall, as private men, run together to make a new election; and consequently, if there be any man, who by the advantage of the reign of him that is dead, hath strength enough to hold the multitude in peace and obedience, he may lawfully, or rather is by the law of nature obliged so to do: if this power of the people were not dissolved at the choosing of their king for life, then is the people sovereign still, and the king a minister thereof only, but so, as to put the whole sovereignty in execution; a great minister, but no otherwise for his time, than a dictator was in Rome. In this case, at the death of him that was chosen, they that meet for a new election, have no new, but their old authority for the same. For they were the sovereign all the time, as appeareth by the acts of those elective kings, that have procured from the people, that their children might succeed them.
For it is to be understood, when a man receiveth any thing from the authority of the people, he receiveth it not from the people his subjects, but from the people his sovereign. And further, though in the election of a king for his life, the people grant him the exercise of their sovereignty for that time; yet if they see cause, they may recall the same before the time. As a prince that conferreth an office for life, may nevertheless, upon suspicion of abuse thereof, recall it at his pleasure; inasmuch as offices that require labour and care, are understood to pass from him that giveth them, as _onera_, _burthens_, to them that have them; the recalling whereof are therefore not _injury_, but _favour_. Nevertheless, if in making an elective king, with intention to reserve the sovereignty, they reserve not a power at certain known and determined times and places to assemble themselves, the reservation of their sovereignty is of no effect, inasmuch as no man is bound to stand to the decrees and determinations of those that assemble themselves without the sovereign authority. [Sidenote: A conditional king, &c.]
10. In the former section is showed, that elective kings that exercise their sovereignty for a time, which determines with their life, either are subjects, or not sovereigns; and that it is, when the people in election of them, reserve unto themselves the right of assembling at certain times and places limited and made known; or else absolute sovereigns, to dispose of the succession at their pleasure, and that is, when the people in their election have declared no time nor place of their meeting, or have left it to the power of the elected king, to assemble and dissolve them at such times, as he himself shall think good. There is another kind of limitation of time, to him that shall be elected to use the sovereign power, which whether it hath been practised anywhere, or not, I know not, but it may be imagined, and hath been objected against the rigour of sovereign power; and it is this, that the people transfer their sovereignty upon conditions. As for example, for so long as he shall observe such and such laws, as they then prescribe him.
And here as before in elected kings, the question is to be made, whether in the electing of such a sovereign, they reserved to themselves a right of assembling at times and places limited and known, or not; if not, then is the sovereignty of the people dissolved, and they have neither power to judge of the breach of the conditions given him, nor to command any forces for the deposing of him, whom on that condition they had set up, but are in the estate of war amongst themselves, as they were before they made themselves a democracy: and consequently, if he that is elected by the advantage of the possession he hath of the public means, be able to compel them to unity and obedience, he hath not only the right of nature to warrant him, but the law of nature to oblige him thereunto. But if in electing him, they reserved to themselves a right of assembling, and appointed certain times and places to that purpose, then are they sovereign still, and may call their conditional king to account at their pleasure, and deprive him of his government, if they judge he deserve it, either by breach of the condition set him, or otherwise. For the sovereign power can by no covenant with a subject be bound to continue him in the charge he undergoeth by their command, as a burden imposed not particularly for his good, but for the good of the sovereign people.
For where every man hath his right distinct, there is nothing left for the multitude to have right unto: and when the particulars say, this is mine, this is thine, and this is his, and have shared all amongst them, there can be nothing whereof the multitude can say, this is mine; nor are they one body, as behoveth them to be, that demand anything under the name of mine, or his: and when they say ours, every man is understood to pretend in several, and not the multitude. On the other side, when the multitude is united into a body politic, and thereby are a people in the other signification, and their wills virtually in the sovereign, there the rights and demands of the particulars do cease; and he or they that have the sovereign power, doth for them all, demand, and vindicate under the name of his, that which before they called in the plural, theirs. [Sidenote: Obedience discharged by release, &c.] 12. We have seen how particular men enter into subjection, by transferring their rights; it followeth to consider, how such subjection may be discharged. And first, if he or they that have the sovereign power, shall relinquish the same voluntarily, there is no doubt, but every man is again at liberty to obey, or not. Likewise, if he or they retaining the sovereignty over the rest, do nevertheless exempt some one or more, from their subjection, every man so exempted, is discharged. For he or they to whom any man is obliged, hath the power to release him.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.