Sixthly,that it is an inconvenience in monarchy that the sovereignty may descend upon an infant,or one that cannot discern between good and evil:and consisteth in this,that the use of his power must be in the hand of another man,or of some assembly of men,which are to govern by his right and in his name as curators and protectors of his person and authority.But to say there is inconvenience in putting the use of the sovereign power into the hand of a man,or an assembly of men,is to say that all government is more inconvenient than confusion and civil war.And therefore all the danger that can be pretended must arise from the contention of those that,for an office of so great honour and profit,may become competitors.To make it appear that this inconvenience proceedeth not from that form of government we call monarchy,we are to consider that the precedent monarch hath appointed who shall have the tuition of his infant successor,either expressly by testament,or tacitly by not controlling the custom in that case received:and then such inconvenience,if it happen,is to be attributed,not to the monarchy,but to the ambition and injustice of the subjects,which in all kinds of government,where the people are not well instructed in their duty and the rights of sovereignty,is the same.Or else the precedent monarch hath not at all taken order for such tuition;and then the law of nature hath provided this sufficient rule,that the tuition shall be in him that hath by nature most interest in the preservation of the authority of the infant,and to whom least benefit can accrue by his death or diminution.For seeing every man by nature seeketh his own benefit and promotion,to put an infant into the power of those that can promote themselves by his destruction or damage is not tuition,but treachery.So that sufficient provision being taken against all just quarrel about the government under a child,if any contention arise to the disturbance of the public peace,it is not to be attributed to the form of monarchy,but to the ambition of subjects and ignorance of their duty.On the other side,there is no great Commonwealth,the sovereignty whereof is in a great assembly,which is not,as to consultations of peace,and war,and making of laws,in the same condition as if the government were in a child.For as a child wants the judgement to dissent from counsel given him,and is thereby necessitated to take the advice of them,or him,to whom he is committed;so an assembly wanteth the liberty to dissent from the counsel of the major part,be it good or bad.And as a child has need of a tutor,or protector,to preserve his person and authority;so also in great Commonwealths the sovereign assembly,in all great dangers and troubles,have need of custodes libertatis;that is,of dictators,or protectors of their authority;which are as much as temporary monarchs to whom for a time they may commit the entire exercise of their power;and have,at the end of that time,been oftener deprived thereof than infant kings by their protectors,regents,or any other tutors.
Though the kinds of sovereignty be,as I have now shown,but three;that is to say,monarchy,where one man has it;or democracy,where the general assembly of subjects hath it;or aristocracy,where it is in an assembly of certain persons nominated,or otherwise distinguished from the rest:yet he that shall consider the particular Commonwealths that have been and are in the world will not perhaps easily reduce them to three,and may thereby be inclined to think there be other forms arising from these mingled together.As for example,elective kingdoms;where kings have the sovereign power put into their hands for a time;or kingdoms wherein the king hath a power limited:which governments are nevertheless by most writers called monarchy.Likewise if a popular or aristocratical Commonwealth subdue an enemy's country,and govern the same by a president,procurator,or other magistrate,this may seem perhaps,at first sight,to be a democratical or aristocratical government.But it is not so.For elective kings are not sovereigns,but ministers of the sovereign;nor limited kings sovereigns,but ministers of them that have the sovereign power;nor are those provinces which are in subjection to a democracy or aristocracy of another Commonwealth democratically or aristocratically governed,but monarchically.
And first,concerning an elective king,whose power is limited to his life,as it is in many places of Christendom at this day;or to certain years or months,as the dictator's power amongst the Romans;if he have right to appoint his successor,he is no more elective but hereditary.But if he have no power to elect his successor,then there is some other man,or assembly known,which after his decease may elect a new;or else the Commonwealth dieth,and dissolveth with him,and returneth to the condition of war.If it be known who have the power to give the sovereignty after his death,it is known also that the sovereignty was in them before:for none have right to give that which they have not right to possess,and keep to themselves,if they think good.But if there be none that can give the sovereignty after the decease of him that was first elected,then has he power,nay he is obliged by the law of nature,to provide,by establishing his successor,to keep to those that had trusted him with the government from relapsing into the miserable condition of civil war.
And consequently he was,when elected,a sovereign absolute.