The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 02 (of 11) — Thomas Hobbes — John Shaqi
The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 02 (of 11)
Thomas Hobbes · en
right which every man had before to use his faculties to his own
advantage, is now wholly translated on some certain man or council
for the common benefit. Wherefore what by the mutual contracts each
one hath made with the other, what by the donation of right which
every man is bound to ratify to him that commands, the government is
upheld by a double obligation from the citizens; first, that which
is due to their fellow-citizens; next, that which they owe to their
prince. Wherefore no subjects, how many soever they be, can with any
right despoil him who bears the chief rule of his authority, even
without his own consent.
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CHAPTER VII
OF THE THREE KINDS OF GOVERNMENT, DEMOCRACY,
ARISTOCRACY, MONARCHY.
1. That there are three kinds of government only, democracy,
aristocracy, monarchy. 2. That oligarchy is not a diverse form
of government distinct from aristocracy, nor anarchy any form at
all. 3. That a tyranny is not a diverse state from a legitimate
monarchy. 4. That there cannot be a mixed state, fashioned out
of these several species. 5. That democracy, except there be
certain times and places of meeting prefixed, is dissolved. 6.
In a democracy the intervals of the times of meeting must be
short, or the administration of government during the interval
committed to some one. 7. In a democracy, particulars contract
with particulars to obey the people: the people is obliged to no
man. 8. By what acts aristocracy is constituted. 9. In an
aristocracy the nobles make no compact, neither are they obliged
to any citizen or to the whole people. 10. The nobles must
necessarily have their set meetings. 11. By what acts monarchy
is constituted. 12. Monarchy is by compact obliged to none for
the authority it hath received. 13. Monarchy is ever in the
readiest capacity to exercise all those acts which are requisite
to good government 14. What kind of sin that is, and what sort
of men are guilty of it, when the city performs not its office
towards the citizens, nor the citizens towards the city. 15. A
monarch made without limitation of time hath power to elect his
successor. 16. Of limited monarchs. 17. 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. 18. How a citizen is freed
from subjection.
[Sidenote: There are three kinds of government only; democracy,
aristocracy, and monarchy.]