16. And supposing it were so, how were this condition, which they call _slavery_, eased thereby. For in this estate they would have no man allowed, either to be his own judge, or own carver, or to make any laws unto himself; and as long as these three agree, they are as absolutely subject to them, as is a child to the father, or a slave to the master, in the state of nature. The ease therefore of this subjection, must consist in the disagreement of those amongst whom they have distributed the rights of sovereign power. But the same disagreement is war. The division therefore of the sovereignty, either worketh no effect to the taking away of simple subjection, or introduceth war, wherein the private sword hath place again. But the truth is, as hath been already showed in the seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth precedent sections, the sovereignty is indivisible. And that seeming mixture of several kinds of government, is not mixture of the things themselves, but confusion in our understandings, that cannot find out readily to whom we have subjected ourselves. [Sidenote: Mixed government, &c.] 17. But though the sovereignty be not mixed, but be always either simple democracy, or simple aristocracy, or pure monarchy, nevertheless in the administration thereof, all those sorts of government may have place subordinate. For suppose the sovereign power be democracy, as it was sometimes in Rome, yet at the same time they may have a council aristocratical, such as was the senate; and at the same time they may have a subordinate monarch, such as was their dictator, who had, for a time, the exercise of the whole sovereignty, and such as are all generals in war. So also in monarchy there may be a council aristocratical of men, chosen by the monarch; or democratical of men, chosen by the consent, the monarch permitting, of all the particular men of the commonwealth. And this mixture is it that imposeth, as if it were the mixture of sovereignty. As if a man should think, because the great council of Venice doth nothing ordinarily but choose magistrates, ministers of state, captains, and governors of towns, ambassadors, counsellors, and the like, that therefore their part of the sovereignty is only choosing of magistrates; and that the making of war, and peace, and laws, were not theirs, but the part of such counsellors as they appointed thereto: whereas it is the part of _these_ to do it but subordinately, the supreme authority thereof being in the great council that choose them. [Sidenote: Reason and experience to prove absolute sovereignty somewhere in all commonwealths.]