1.We now come to the third topic touched upon in the digression;namely,the right,as our Author phrases it,which the Supreme Power has of making laws.And this topic occupies one pretty long paragraph.The title here given to it is the same which in the next succeeding paragraph he has found for it himself.This is fortunate:for,to have been obliged to find a title for it myself,is what would have been to the last degree distressing.
To intitle a discourse,is to represent the drift of it.But,to represent the drift of this,is a task which,so long at least as I confine my consideration to the paragraph itself,bids defiance to my utmost efforts.
2.`Tis to another passage or two,a passage or two that we have already seen starting up in distant parts of this digression,that I am indebted for such conjectures as I have been able to make up.
These conjectures,however,I could not have ventured so far to rely on,as on the strength of them to have furnished the paragraph with a title of my own framing.The danger of misrepresentation was too great;a kind of danger which a man cannot but lie imminently exposed to,who ventures to put a precise meaning upon a discourse which in itself has none.That I may just mention,however,in this place,the result of them;what he is really aiming at,I take it,is,to inculcate a persuasion that in every state there must subsist,in some hands or other,a power that is absolute.
I mention it thus prematurely,hat the reader may have some clue to guide him in his progress through the paragraph;which it is now time I should recite.
3.`Having',says our Author,`thus cursorily considered the three usual species of government,and our own singular constitution,selected and compounded from them all,I proceed to observe,that,as the power of making laws constitutes the supreme authority,so wherever the supreme authority in any state resides,it is the right of that authority to make laws;that is,in the words of our definition,to prescribe the rule of civil action.
And this may be discovered from the very end and institution of civil states.
For a state is a collective body,composed of a multitude of individuals united for their safety and convenience,and intending to act together as one man.If it therefore is to act as one man,it ought to act by one uniform will.But in as much as political communities are made up of many natural persons,each of whom has his particular will and inclination,these several wills cannot by any natural union be joined together,or tempered and disposed into a lasting harmony,so as to constitute and produce that one uniform will of the whole.It can therefore be no otherwise produced than by a political union;by the consent of all persons to submit their own private wills to the will of one man,or of one,or more assemblies of men,to whom the supreme authority is entrusted:and this will of that one man,or assemblage of men is,in different states,according to their different constitutions,understood to be law.'
4.The other passages which suggested to me the construction I have ventured to put upon this,shall be mentioned by and by.First,let us try what is to be made of it by itself.
5.The obscurity in which the first sentence of this paragraph is enveloped,is such,that I know not how to go about bringing it to light,without borrowing a word or two of logicians.Laying aside the preamble,the body of it,viz.`as the power of making laws constitutes the supreme authority,so where-ever the supreme authority in any state resides,it is the right of that authority to make laws,'may be considered as constituting that sort of syllogism which logicians call an enthymeme.An enthymeme consists of two propositions;a consequent and an antecedent.`The power of making laws',says our Author,`constitutes the supreme authority.'This is his antecedent.From hence it is he concludes,that `wherever the supreme authority in any state resides,it is the right of that authority to make laws.'
This then is his consequent.
Now so it is,that this antecedent,and this consequent,for any difference at least that I can possibly perceive in them,would turn out were they but correctly worded,to mean precisely the same thing:for after saying that `the power of making laws constitutes the supreme authority',to tell us that,for that reason,`the supreme authority'is (oi has)the power (or the right)of making laws,is giving us,I take it,much the same sort of information,as it would be to us to be told that a thing is so,because it is so:a sort of a truth which there seems to be no very great occasion to send us upon `discovering,in the end and institution of civil states'.
That by the `sovereign power',he meant `the power of making laws';this,or something like it,is no more indeed than what he had told us over and over,and over again,with singular energy and anxiety,in his 46th page,in his 49th,and in,I know not how many,pages besides:I always taking care,for precision's sake,to give a little variety to the expression:
the words `power'and `authority',sometimes,seemingly put for the same idea;sometimes seemingly opposed to each other:both of them sometimes denoting the fictitious being,the abstract quality;sometimes the real being or beings,the person or persons supposed to possess that quality.
Let us disentangle the sense from these ambiguities;let us learn to speak distinctly of the persons,and of the quality we attribute to them;and then let us make another effort to find a meaning for this perplexing passage.
6.By the `supreme authority'then,(we may suppose our Author to say)`I mean the same thing as when I say the power of making laws'.This is the proposition we took notice of above,under the name of the antecedent.
