In answer to this, I think it is manifest from the practice of the wisest nations, and who seem to have had the truest notions of freedom, that when a prince was laid aside for mal-administration, the nobles and people, if they thought it necessary for the public weal, did resume the administration of the supreme power (the power itself having been always in them) and did not only alter the succession, but often the very form of government too; because they believed there was no natural right in one man to govern another, but that all was by institution, force, or consent. Thus, the cities of Greece, when they drove out their tyrannical kings, either chose others from a new family, or abolished the kingly government, and became free states. Thus the Romans upon the expulsion of Tarquin found it inconvenient for them to be subject any longer to the pride, the lust, the cruelty and arbitrary will of single persons, and therefore by general consent entirely altered the whole frame of their government. Nor do I find the proceedings of either, in this point, to have been condemned by any historian of the succeeding ages. But a great deal hath been already said by other writers upon this invidious and beaten subject; therefore I shall let it fall, though the point is commonly mistaken, especially by the lawyers; who of all others seem least to understand the nature of government in general; like under-workmen, who are expert enough at making a single wheel in a clock, but are utterly ignorant how to adjust the several parts, or regulate the movements. To return therefore from this digression: It is a Church of England man's opinion, that the freedom of a nation consists in an absolute unlimited legislative power, wherein the whole body of the people are fairly represented, and in an executive duly limited; because on this side likewise there may be dangerous degrees, and a very ill extreme. For when two parties in a state are pretty equal in power, pretensions, merit, and virtue, (for these two last are with relation to parties and a court, quite different things) it hath been the opinion of the best writers upon government, that a prince ought not in any sort to be under the guidance or influence of either, because he declines by this means from his office of presiding over the whole, to be the head of a party; which besides the indignity, renders him answerable for all public mismanagements and the consequences of them; and in whatever state this happens, there must either be a weakness in the prince or ministry, or else the former is too much restrained by the legislature.[1] [Footnote 1: This is as given in the "Miscellanies" (1711). Scott and Faulkner print "by the nobles, or those who represent the people." [T. S.]]