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