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
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
commonwealth. Sect. 133.
By
commonwealth, 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
commonwealth,
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
commonwealth:
and
therefore,
to
avoid
ambiguity, I
crave
leave
to
use
the
word
commonwealth
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.