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. [Sidenote: 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. [Sidenote: 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 monarch, 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. [Sidenote: Of limited monarchs.]