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Dominion, Chapter VII, 2
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11 As an aristocracy, so also a monarchy is derived from the power of the people, transferring its right, that is, its authority on one man. Here also we must understand, that some one man, either by name or some other token, is propounded to be taken notice of above all the rest; and that by a plurality of voices the whole right of the people is conveyed on him; insomuch as whatsoever the people could do before he were elected, the same in every respect may he by right now do, being elected. Which being done, the people is no longer one person, but a rude multitude, as being only one before by virtue of the supreme command, whereof they now have made a conveyance from themselves on this one man.
That the monarch is by compact obliged to none for the authority he hath received.
12 And therefore neither doth the monarch oblige himself to any for the command he receives. For he receives it from the people; but as hath been shewed above, the people, as soon as that act is done, ceaseth to be a person; but the person vanishing, obligation to the person vanisheth. The subjects therefore are tied to perform obedience to the monarch, by those compacts only by which they mutually obliged themselves to the observation of all that the people should command them, that is, to obey that monarch, if he were made by the people.
A monarch is ever in the readier capacity to exercise all those acts which are requisite to well governing.
13 But a monarchy differs as well from an aristocracy as a democracy, in this chiefly; that in those there must be certain set times and places for deliberation and consultation of affairs, that is, for the actual exercise of it in all times and places. For the people or the nobles not being one natural person, must necessarily have their meetings. The monarch, who is one by nature, is always in a present capacity to execute his authority.
What kind of sin that is, and what sort of men are guilty of it, when the city performs not its office to the citizens, nor the citizens towards the city.
14 Because we have declared above, (in art. 7, 9, 12), that they who have gotten the supreme command, are by no compacts obliged to any man, it necessarily follows, that they can do no injury to the subjects. For injury, according to the definition made in chap. III. art. 3, is nothing else but a breach of contract; and therefore where no contracts have part, there can be no injury. Yet the people, the nobles, and the monarch may diverse ways transgress against the other laws of nature, as by cruelty, iniquity, contumely, and other like vices, which come not under this strict and exact notion of injury. But if the subject yield not obedience to the supreme, he will in propriety of speech be said to be injurious, as well to his fellow-subjects, because each man hath compacted with the other to obey; as to his chief ruler, in resuming that right which he hath given him, without his consent. And in a democracy or aristocracy, if anything be decreed against any law of nature, the city itself, that is, the civil person sins not, but those subjects only by whose votes it was decreed; for sin is a consequence of the natural express will, not of the political, which is artificial. For if it were otherwise, they would be guilty by whom the decree was absolutely disliked. But in a monarchy, if the monarch make any decree against the laws of nature, he sins himself; because in him the civil will and the natural are all one.
A monarch made without limitation of time, may elect his successors.
15 The people who are about to make a monarch, may give him the supremacy either simply without limitation of time, or for a certain season and time determined. If simply, we must understand that he who receives it, hath the self-same power which they had who gave it. On the same grounds, therefore, that the people by right could make him a monarchmonarch, may he make another monarch. Insomuch as the monarch to whom the command is simply given, receives a right not of possession only, but of succession also; so as he may declare whom he pleaseth for his successor.
Of limited monarchs.
16 But if the power be given for a time limited, we must have regard to somewhat more than the bare gift only. First, whether the people conveying its authority, left itself any right to meet at certain times and places, or not. Next, if it have reserved this power, whether it were done so as they might meet before that time were expired, which they prescribed to the monarch. Thirdly, whether they were contented to meet only at the will of that temporary monarch, and not otherwise. Suppose now the people had delivered up its power to some one man for term of life only; which being done, let us suppose in the first place, that every man departed from the council without making any order at all concerning the place, where after his death they should meet again to make a new election. In this case, it is manifest by the fifth article of this chapter, that the people ceaseth to be a person, and is become a dissolute multitude; every one whereof hath an equal, to wit, a natural right to meet with whom he lists at divers times, and in what places shall best please him; nay, and if he can, engross the supreme power to himself, and settle it on his own head. What monarch soever, therefore, hath a command in such a condition, he is bound by the law of nature, set down in chap. III. art. 8, of not returning evil for good, prudently to provide that by his death the city suffer not a dissolution; either by appointing a certain day and place, in which those subjects of his, who have a mind to it, may assemble themselves, or else by nominating a successor; whether of these shall to him seem most conducible to their common benefit. He therefore, who on this foresaid manner hath received his command during life, hath an absolute power, and may at his discretion dispose of the succession. In the next place, if we grant that the people departed not from the election of the temporary monarch, before they decreed a certain time and place of meeting after his death; then the monarch being dead, the authority is confirmed in the people, not by any new acts of the subjects, but by virtue of the former right. For all the supreme command, as dominion, was in the people; but the use and exercise of it was only in the temporary monarch, as in one that takes the benefit, but hath not the right. But if the people after the election of a temporary monarch, depart not from the court before they have appointed certain times and places to convene during the time prescribed him; as the dictators in ancient times were made by the people of Rome; such an one is not to be accounted a monarch, but the prime officer of the people. And if it shall seem good, the people may deprive him of his office even before that time; as the people of Rome did, when they conferred an equal power on Minutius, master of the horse, with Quintus Fabius Maximus, whom before they had made dictator. The reason whereof is, that it is not to be imagined, that he, whether man or council, who hath the readiest and most immediate power to act, should hold his command on such terms, as not to be able actually to execute it; for command is nothing else but a right of commanding, as oft as nature allows it possible. Lastly, if the people having declared a temporary monarch, depart from the court on such terms, as it shall not be lawful for them to meet without the command of the monarch, we must understand the people to be immediately dissolved, and that his authority, who is thus declared, is absolute; forasmuch as it is not in the power of all the subjects to frame the city anew, unless he give consent who hath now alone the authority. Nor matters it, that he hath perhaps made any promise to assemble his subjects on some certain times; since there remains no person now in being, but at his discretion, to whom the promise was made. What we have spoken of these four cases of a people electing a temporary monarch, will be more clearly explained by comparing them with an absolute monarch who hath no heir-apparent. For the people is lord of the subject in such a manner, as there can be no heir but whom itself doth appoint. Besides, the spaces between the times of the subjects’ meeting, may be fitly compared to those times wherein the monarch sleeps; for in either the acts of commanding cease, the power remains. Furthermore, to dissolve the convent, so as it cannot meet again, is the death of the people; just as sleeping, so as he can never wake more, is the death of a man. As therefore a king who hath no heir, going to his rest so as never to rise again, that is, dying, if he commit the exercise of his regal authority to any one till he awake, does by consequence give him the succession; the people also electing a temporary monarch, and not reserving a power to convene, delivers up to him the whole dominion of the country. Furthermore, as a king going to sleep for some season, entrusts the administration of his kingdom to some other, and waking takes it again; so the people having elected a temporary monarch, and withal retaining a right to meet at a certain day and place, at that day receives its supremacy again. And as a king who hath committed the execution of his authority to another, himself in the meanwhile waking, can recal this commission again when he pleaseth; so the people, who during the time prescribed to the temporary monarch doth by right convene, may if they please deprive the monarch of his authority. Lastly, the king, who commits his authority to another while himself sleeps, not being able to wake again till he whom he entrusted give consent, loses at once both his power and his life; so the people, who hath given the supreme power to a temporary monarch in such sort as they cannot assemble without his command, is absolutely dissolved, and the power remains with him whom they have chosen.
A monarch retaining his right of government, cannot, by any promise whatsoever, be conceived to have parted with his right to the means necessary to the exercise of his authority.
17 If the monarch promise aught to any one or many subjects together, by consequence whereof the exercise of his power may suffer prejudice, that promise or compact, whether made by oath or without it, is null. For all compact is a conveyance of right, which by what hath been said in the fourth article of the second chapter, requires meet and proper signs of the will in the conveyer. But he who sufficiently signifies his will of retaining the end, doth also sufficiently declare that he quits not his right to the means necessary to that end. Now he who hath promised to part with somewhat necessary to the supreme power, and yet retains the power itself, gives sufficient tokens that he no otherwise promised it, than so far forth as the power might be retained without it. Whensoever therefore it shall appear, that what is promised cannot be performed without prejudice to the power, the promise must be valued as not made, that is, of no effect.
By what means a subject is freed from his subjection.
18 We have seen how subjects, nature dictating, have obliged themselvesthemselves by mutual compacts to obey the supreme power. We will see now by what means it comes to pass, that they are released from these bonds of obedience. And first of all, this happens by rejection, namely, if a man cast off or forsake, but convey not the right of his command on some other. For what is thus rejected, is openly exposed to all alike, catch who catch can; whence again, by the right of nature, every subject may heed the preservation of himself according to his own judgment. In the second place, if the kingdom fall into the power of the enemy, so as there can no more opposition be made against them, we must understand that he who before had the supreme authority, hath now lost it: for when the subjects have done their full endeavour to prevent their falling into the enemy’s hands, they have fulfilled those contracts of obedience which they made each with other; and what, being conquered, they promise afterwards to avoid death, they must with no less endeavour labour to perform. Thirdly, in a monarchy, (for a democracy and aristocracy cannot fail), if there be no successor, all the subjects are discharged from their obligations; for no man is supposed to be tied he knows not to whom; for in such a case it were impossible to perform aught. And by these three ways, all subjects are restored from their civil subjection to that liberty which all men have to all things; to wit, natural and savage; for the natural state hath the same proportion to the civil, (I mean, liberty to subjection), which passion hath to reason, or a beast to a man. Furthermore, each subject may lawfully be freed from his subjection by the will of him who hath the supreme power, namely, if he change his soil; which may be done two ways, either by permission, as he who gets license to dwell in another country; or command, as he who is banished. In both cases, he is free from the laws of his former country; because he is tied to observe those of the latter.
CHAPTER VIII. OF THE RIGHTS OF LORDS OVER THEIR SERVANTS.
14 But that there can be no such kind of government.] Most men grant, that a government ought not to be divided; but they would have it moderated and bounded by some limits. Truly it is very reasonable it should be so; but if these men, when they speak of moderating and limiting, do understand dividing it, they make a very fond distinction. Truly, for my part, I wish that not only kings, but all other persons endued with supreme authority, would so temper themselves as to commit no wrong, and only minding their charges, contain themselves within the limits of the natural and divine laws. But they who distinguish thus, they would have the chief power bounded and restrained by others: which, because it cannot be done but they who do set the limits must needs have some part of the power, whereby they may be enabled to do it, the government is properly divided, not moderated.
Musean translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from Hobbes’s own 1651 English version of De Cive, complete (epistle, preface, eighteen chapters with annotations; Molesworth’s 1841 text) for fidelity, the author’s force and cadence, and modern clarity. Molesworth’s index is omitted.
11 A monarchy, like an aristocracy, derives from the power of the people when they transfer their right, that is, their authority, to one man. Here too we must understand that one man, identified by name or another mark, is proposed for recognition above all the rest, and that by a majority of votes the entire right of the people is conveyed to him. Once elected, he may by right do in every respect whatever the people could do before his election. After this, the people are no longer one person but an unorganized multitude, having previously been one only through the supreme command that they have now transferred from themselves to this one man.
The monarch is obliged by no covenant to anyone for the authority he has received.
12 Consequently, the monarch does not bind himself to anyone in receiving command. He receives it from the people; but, as shown above, as soon as that act is done the people cease to be a person, and when the person vanishes, any obligation to that person vanishes too. Subjects are therefore bound to obey the monarch only by the covenants through which they mutually bound themselves to observe everything the people should command them—that is, to obey that monarch if the people appointed him.
A monarch is always ready to exercise all the acts required for good government.
13 Monarchy differs from both aristocracy and democracy chiefly in this: in those governments definite times and places must be set for deliberating and consulting about affairs, whereas the monarch can actually exercise authority at every time and place. Since the people or the nobles are not one natural person, they must hold meetings; the monarch, one person by nature, is always ready to exercise his authority.
What kind of sin is committed, and by whom, when the city fails in its duty toward its citizens or its citizens toward the city.
14 Because we declared above (in art. 7, 9, 12) that those who acquire supreme command are bound by no covenants to anyone, it necessarily follows that they cannot injure their subjects. For injury, by the definition in chap. III. art. 3, is nothing but a breach of contract; where there are no contracts, there can be no injury. Nevertheless, the people, the nobles, and the monarch may in various ways violate the other laws of nature—through cruelty, inequity, contempt, and other such vices—which do not fall under this strict and precise meaning of injury. But if a subject refuses to obey the supreme authority, he may properly be called injurious both to his fellow subjects, because each has covenanted with every other to obey, and to his sovereign, because he takes back without consent the right he gave him. In a democracy or aristocracy, if anything is decreed contrary to a law of nature, the city itself, the civil person, does not sin: only those subjects whose votes enacted the decree do. For sin follows the expressed natural will, not the political will, which is artificial. Otherwise even those who utterly opposed the decree would be guilty. In a monarchy, however, if the monarch decrees anything contrary to the laws of nature, he himself sins, because his civil will and his natural will are one and the same.
A monarch appointed without a time limit may choose his successor.
15 The people about to appoint a monarch may give him supremacy either outright, without a time limit, or for a fixed term. If they give it outright, we must understand that the recipient has the very same power as those who gave it. On the same grounds on which the people could rightfully appoint him monarch, he may appoint another monarch. Thus a monarch to whom command is given outright receives not merely the right of possession but the right of succession too, and may name whomever he wishes as his successor.
On monarchs appointed for a limited term.
16 If power is granted for a limited time, however, we must consider more than the grant alone. First, did the people, when transferring authority, reserve any right to meet at specified times and places? Next, if they did, could they meet before the monarch’s prescribed term expired? Third, did they agree to meet only at the temporary monarch’s will, and not otherwise? Suppose the people have handed their power to one man for his lifetime only. Let us first suppose that afterward everyone leaves the assembly without making any provision whatever for the place where they will meet after his death to choose another. In this case, as is clear from the fifth article of this chapter, the people cease to be a person and become a scattered multitude. Every member has an equal natural right to meet whomever he likes at various times and wherever he pleases—and, if he can, to seize supreme power for himself and establish it in his own person. A monarch holding command in these circumstances is therefore bound by the law of nature set forth in chap. III. art. 8, against returning evil for good, to take prudent measures so that the city will not dissolve at his death: either appointing a day and place where those subjects of his who wish to may assemble, or naming a successor, whichever he thinks most conducive to their common benefit. A man who receives command for his lifetime in this manner therefore has absolute power and may dispose of the succession as he sees fit. Suppose next that the people do not disperse after electing a temporary monarch until they have decreed a time and place to meet after his death. When the monarch dies, authority is restored to the people, not through any new act of the subjects but by virtue of their former right. All supreme command, as dominion, remained with the people; only its use and exercise belonged to the temporary monarch, like a person who enjoys a benefit but does not own the right. Suppose, however, that after electing a temporary monarch the people do not leave the assembly until they have appointed times and places to convene during his prescribed term, as the Roman people once did when appointing dictators. Such a man should be regarded not as a monarch but as the people’s chief officer. If they wish, the people may remove him even before his term expires, as the Roman people did when they conferred on Minutius, master of the horse, power equal to that of Quintus Fabius Maximus, whom they had previously appointed dictator. The reason is that we cannot imagine that the person or council holding the most immediate power to act should hold command on terms that prevent its actual exercise: command is simply a right to command whenever nature makes it possible. Finally, if the people, having named a temporary monarch, leave the assembly on terms that forbid them to meet without his command, we must understand that the people are dissolved at once and the authority of the man thus appointed is absolute. For the subjects together cannot establish the city anew without the consent of the man who now alone holds authority. It makes no difference that he may have promised to call his subjects together at specified times, since the person to whom the promise was made no longer exists except at his discretion. What we have said about these four cases of a people electing a temporary monarch will become clearer by comparing them with an absolute monarch who has no apparent heir. The people are lord over the subjects in such a way that there can be no heir except one whom the people appoint. Moreover, the intervals between meetings of the subjects may aptly be compared to the times when a monarch sleeps: in both cases acts of command cease, but power remains. To dissolve an assembly so that it can never meet again is the death of the people, just as sleep from which a man can never wake is his death. Thus, if a king without an heir goes to rest never to rise again—that is, dies—and entrusts the exercise of his royal authority to someone until he wakes, he thereby gives him the succession. Likewise, the people who elect a temporary monarch without reserving the power to assemble give him complete dominion over the country. Again, as a king who goes to sleep for a time entrusts the administration of his kingdom to someone else and takes it back on waking, so the people who elect a temporary monarch while retaining the right to meet on a particular day and at a particular place recover their supremacy on that day. And as a king who entrusts the exercise of his authority to another while he himself remains awake may revoke that commission whenever he pleases, so the people who have a right to assemble during the temporary monarch’s term may, if they wish, remove him from power. Finally, a king who entrusts his authority to someone while he sleeps, and cannot wake again without that person’s consent, loses both his power and his life at once. So too the people who give supreme power to a temporary monarch on terms that prevent them from assembling without his command are utterly dissolved, and power remains with the man they have chosen.
A monarch who retains his right of government cannot, by any promise whatever, be understood to have surrendered his right to the means necessary for exercising his authority.
17 If a monarch promises something to one subject or several subjects together that would impair the exercise of his power, the promise or covenant is void, whether sworn on oath or not. Every covenant is a transfer of right, which, as stated in the fourth article of the second chapter, requires fitting and proper signs of the transferor’s will. But a person who clearly signifies his intention to retain an end also clearly declares that he does not surrender his right to the means necessary for attaining it. A monarch who has promised to part with something necessary to supreme power while retaining that power itself gives sufficient indication that his promise extended only as far as he could keep the power without it. Whenever, therefore, it becomes clear that the promise cannot be fulfilled without impairing that power, it must be regarded as never made and thus as having no effect.
How a subject is freed from subjection.
18 We have seen how subjects, at nature’s prompting, bind themselves by mutual covenants to obey supreme power. Now we shall see how they are released from those bonds of obedience. First, this happens by renunciation, when the ruler casts away or abandons the right of command without transferring it to another. What has been cast away lies open to all alike, to be taken by whoever can; thus, by the right of nature, each subject may once again provide for his preservation according to his own judgment. Second, if the kingdom falls into enemy hands so completely that no further resistance can be made, the former holder of supreme authority must be understood to have lost it. Once subjects have done everything in their power to avoid falling into enemy hands, they have fulfilled the covenants of obedience they made with one another; whatever they subsequently promise as conquered people to escape death, they must strive no less to perform. Third, in a monarchy (for a democracy and aristocracy cannot fail in this way), if there is no successor, all subjects are discharged from their obligations. No one is understood to be bound when he does not know to whom: in such a case performance would be impossible. In these three ways all subjects are restored from civil subjection to the liberty that everyone naturally has to everything—a natural and savage liberty; for the state of nature stands to the civil state, that is, liberty to subjection, as passion stands to reason, or a beast to a man. Furthermore, any subject may lawfully be released from subjection by the will of the holder of supreme power if he changes the country in which he lives. This may happen either by permission, as when he receives a license to live in another country, or by command, as when he is banished. In both cases he is free from the laws of his former country because he is bound to observe those of the new one.
CHAPTER VIII. ON THE RIGHTS OF LORDS OVER THEIR SERVANTS.
14 But no such kind of government can exist.] Most people agree that government ought not to be divided, but they want it moderated and confined within certain limits. Certainly this is entirely reasonable. Yet if by moderation and limitation they mean division, theirs is a foolish distinction. For my part, I wish that kings and all other holders of supreme authority would so govern themselves as to do no wrong, attend only to their duties, and remain within the bounds of natural and divine law. But those who draw this distinction want the supreme power bounded and restrained by others. Since those who impose the limits must hold a share of power in order to enforce them, this divides the government rather than moderating it.
Plain English translation
Mouseia’s complete Plain English edition, made independently and directly from Hobbes’s own 1651 English version of De Cive, complete (epistle, preface, eighteen chapters with annotations; Molesworth’s 1841 text). Molesworth’s index is omitted.
11 Like an aristocracy, a monarchy comes from the power of the people when they transfer their right, that is, their authority, to one man. Here, too, we must understand that one man is put forward, identified by name or some other sign, for special consideration. A majority vote transfers the people's entire right to him. Once elected, he may rightfully do, in every respect, whatever the people could do before. After this, the people is no longer a single person but an unorganized multitude. It had been one person only through its supreme power, which it has now transferred to the man.
The monarch owes no obligation by covenant for the authority he has received.
12 The monarch therefore does not bind himself to anyone in return for the power he receives. He receives it from the people, but, as shown above, the people ceases to be a person as soon as it transfers that power. When the person disappears, any obligation owed to it disappears too. Subjects are therefore bound to obey the monarch only by the covenants they made with each other to follow everything the people ordered. Those covenants oblige them to obey a monarch if the people appoints one.
A monarch is always ready to perform all the acts needed for good government.
13 In this respect especially, a monarchy differs from both an aristocracy and a democracy. In the latter two, fixed times and places are needed to discuss and decide matters, that is, to exercise authority in practice at the times and places where it is needed. The people and the nobles are not each a single natural person, so they have to meet. A monarch is a single person by nature and is always ready to exercise his authority.
What kind of sin it is, and who commits it, when the city fails in its duty to the citizens, or the citizens fail in theirs to the city.
14 We explained above (in art. 7, 9, 12) that those who hold supreme power have made no covenant obligating them to any person. It necessarily follows that they cannot injure their subjects. Injury, as defined in chap. III. art. 3, is simply breaking a contract. Where there is no contract, there can be no injury. Yet the people, the nobles, and the monarch can violate other laws of nature in various ways, including cruelty, unfairness, insulting behavior, and similar vices. These do not count as injury in this strict sense. If a subject disobeys the supreme authority, however, the word injury applies properly. He injures his fellow subjects, because each has covenanted with the others to obey. He also injures his supreme ruler by taking back, without consent, a right he gave to that ruler. In a democracy or aristocracy, if something is decreed against a law of nature, the city itself, considered as a civil person, does not sin. Only the subjects who voted for the decree sin. Sin follows from the actual natural will of a person, not from the artificial political will. Otherwise, people who completely opposed the decree would also be guilty. But in a monarchy, when a monarch issues a decree against the laws of nature, he himself sins. His civil will and his natural will are the same.
A monarch appointed without a time limit may choose his successors.
15 A people about to appoint a monarch may give him supreme power either outright, with no time limit, or for a specified term. If they give it outright, we must understand that the recipient has exactly the same power that they had when they gave it. By the same right through which the people could make him monarch, he can make someone else monarch. So the monarch who receives authority outright gains not only the right to hold it himself but also the right to pass it on. He may name anyone he wishes as his successor.
Monarchs whose terms are limited.
16 If power is given for a limited time, we must consider more than the grant itself. First, did the people, when transferring its authority, keep any right to meet at fixed times and places? Next, if it kept that right, could the people meet before the monarch's appointed term expired? Third, was it allowed to meet only when the temporary monarch wished, and not otherwise? Suppose that the people gave its power to one man for his lifetime alone. First imagine that everyone left the assembly without arranging where they would meet after his death to make a new choice. In this case, as the fifth article of this chapter shows, the people ceases to exist as one person and becomes a scattered multitude. Each person in it has an equal natural right to meet whomever he wishes, at different times and wherever he pleases. He may even seize supreme power for himself and establish it in his own hands if he can. A monarch ruling under these conditions is bound by the law of nature stated in chap. III. art. 8, against returning evil for good. He must prudently make arrangements to prevent the city from dissolving when he dies. He may set a day and place where any of his subjects who wish may assemble, or he may name a successor. He should choose whichever course seems best for their common good. Thus a man given power for life in this way has absolute power and may decide the succession as he sees fit. Next, suppose that before leaving the assembly that elected the temporary monarch, the people fixed a time and place to meet after his death. When the monarch dies, authority is then vested in the people again, not because the subjects do anything new, but because of the right they retained before. Supreme power as a possession remained with the people. Only its use and exercise belonged to the temporary monarch, like someone who enjoys a benefit without owning it. Now suppose that after electing a temporary monarch the people stays in the assembly until it has set times and places to meet during his appointed term. This is how the people of Rome appointed dictators in ancient times. Such a man should not be considered a monarch but the people's chief officer. The people may remove him before his term ends if it wishes. The Roman people did this when it gave Minutius, master of the horse, power equal to that of Quintus Fabius Maximus, whom it had previously appointed dictator. The reason is that we cannot suppose a man or assembly with the most immediate power to act holds that power on terms that prevent its actual exercise. Power to command means nothing more than the right to give commands whenever it is naturally possible to do so. Finally, suppose the people names a temporary monarch and leaves the assembly on terms that forbid it to meet again without his command. We must understand that the people immediately dissolves and the appointed man's authority is absolute. The subjects cannot establish the city anew without the consent of the man who now alone holds authority. It does not matter that he may have promised to assemble his subjects at specified times. The person to whom he made the promise no longer exists except when he chooses to allow it to exist. We can make these four cases of a people electing a temporary monarch clearer by comparing them to an absolute monarch with no apparent heir. The people rules the subjects in such a way that no one can inherit power unless the people appoints that person. The intervals between the people's meetings can be compared to the times when a monarch sleeps. In both cases, the acts of commanding stop but the power remains. To dissolve an assembly so that it can never meet again is the death of the people, just as sleep from which a man can never wake is the death of that man. So consider a king with no heir who goes to rest and will never rise again—that is, who dies. If he entrusts someone with the exercise of royal authority until he wakes, he has effectively given that person the succession. In the same way, when the people elects a temporary monarch without keeping the power to meet, it gives him complete control of the country. Again, a king who goes to sleep for a time entrusts someone else with administering his kingdom, and takes that role back when he wakes. In the same way, when the people elects a temporary monarch but retains the right to meet on a fixed day at a fixed place, it takes back supreme power on that day. And a king who hands the exercise of his authority to someone else while he himself remains awake may revoke that commission whenever he pleases. In the same way, the people, if it has the right to meet during the temporary monarch's appointed term, may remove his authority if it wishes. Finally, suppose a king entrusts his authority to someone else while he sleeps and cannot wake again unless that person consents. He loses both his power and his life at once. Likewise, the people that gives supreme power to a temporary monarch on terms that prevent it from assembling without his command dissolves completely. The power remains with the man it chose.
A monarch who keeps his right to govern cannot, by any promise, be understood to have given up his right to the means needed to exercise his authority.
17 Suppose a monarch promises something to one subject or to several subjects together, and fulfilling it could impair the exercise of his power. That promise or covenant has no effect, whether he swore an oath or not. Every covenant transfers a right and, as explained in the fourth article of the second chapter, requires appropriate signs that the person transferring it intends to do so. But someone who makes clear that he intends to keep an end also makes clear that he does not give up his right to the means necessary for that end. If a monarch promises to give up something necessary to supreme power while keeping that power itself, he shows that his promise extends only as far as he can keep his power without that thing. So whenever it becomes clear that the promise cannot be fulfilled without impairing his power, the promise must be treated as if it had not been made. It has no effect.
How a subject is freed from subjection.
18 We have seen how subjects, following what nature teaches, have bound themselves by mutual covenants to obey supreme power. Now we will see how they are released from those bonds of obedience. First, they are released when the ruler rejects his right: he abandons it without transferring his right to rule to anyone else. What he gives up is then available to anyone who can take it. Each subject accordingly regains the right of nature to look after his own safety as he judges best. Second, they are released when a kingdom falls under an enemy's power and further resistance is impossible. The former holder of supreme authority must then be understood to have lost it. Once the subjects have done all they can to avoid capture by the enemy, they have fulfilled the covenants of obedience they made with each other. After their defeat, they must work just as hard to fulfill any promises they make to avoid death. Third, in a monarchy (for a democracy and an aristocracy cannot come to an end in this way), if there is no successor, all subjects are released from their obligations. No one is considered bound to obey without knowing whom he must obey. In such a case, it would be impossible to fulfill any obligation. Through these three means, all subjects leave civil subjection and regain the liberty that everyone naturally has to do anything. This is natural, uncivilized liberty. The natural condition stands to the civil condition, meaning liberty to subjection, as passion stands to reason or a beast to a human being. Also, an individual subject may lawfully be released from subjection by the will of the supreme ruler if he moves to another country. This can happen in two ways: by permission, as when a person gets permission to live elsewhere, or by command, as when a person is banished. In either case, he is freed from the laws of his former country, because he must obey those of his new one.
Chapter VIII. Of the Rights of Lords over Their Servants.
14 But that there can be no such kind of government. Most people agree that government should not be divided, but they want it moderated and limited. That is perfectly reasonable. Yet if they mean divided when they say moderated and limited, their distinction is foolish. For my part, I wish that kings and all other holders of supreme authority would restrain themselves from wrongdoing. I wish they would attend only to their duties and stay within the limits of natural and divine law. But the people who make this distinction want others to limit and restrain supreme power. To set such limits, those others would need to hold some of that power themselves. That would divide the government, not moderate it.