The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface
• Of Government: Book I
• Chap. I.
• Chap. II. Of Paternal and Regal Power.
• Chap. III. Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty By Creation.
• Chap. IV. Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty By Donation, Gen. I. 28.
• Chap. V. Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty By the Subjection of Eve.
• Chap. VI. Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty By Fatherhood.
• Chap. VII. Of Fatherhood and Property Considered Together As Fountains of Sovereignty.
• Chap. VIII. Of the Conveyance of Adam’s Sovereign Monarchical Power.
• Chap. IX. Of Monarchy, By Inheritance From Adam.
• Chap. X. Of the Heir to Adam’s Monarchical Power.
• Chap. XI. Who Heir?
• Of Civil-government: Book Ii
• Chap. I.
• Chap. II. Of the State of Nature.
• Chap. III. Of the State of War.
• Chap. IV. Of Slavery.
• Chap. V. Of Property.
• Chap. VI. Of Paternal Power.
• Chap. VII. Of Political Or Civil Society.
• Chap. VIII. Of the Beginning of Political Societies.
• Chap. IX. Of the Ends of Political Society and Government.
• Chap. X. Of the Forms of a Common-wealth.
• Chap. XI. Of the Extent of the Legislative Power.
• Chap. XII. Of the Legislative, Executive, and Federative Power of the Common-wealth.
• Chap. XIII. Of the Subordination of the Powers of the Common-wealth.
• Chap. XIV. Of Prerogative.
• Chap. XV. Of Paternal, Political, and Despotical Power, Considered Together.
• Chap. XVI. Of Conquest.
• Chap. XVII. Of Usurpation.
• Chap. XVIII. Of Tyranny.
• Chap. XIX. Of the Dissolution of Government.

CHAP. X.
Of the Forms of a Common-wealth.

§. 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.

§. 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.