Sec. 163. And therefore they have a very wrong notion of
government, who say, that the people have encroached upon the
prerogative, when they have got any part of it to be defined by
positive laws: for in so doing they have not pulled from the
prince any thing that of right belonged to him, but only
declared, that that power which they indefinitely left in his or
his ancestors hands, to be exercised for their good, was not a
thing which they intended him when he used it otherwise: for the
end of government being the good of the community, whatsoever
alterations are made in it, tending to that end, cannot be an
encroachment upon any body, since no body in government can have
a right tending to any other end: and those only are
encroachments which prejudice or hinder the public good. Those
who say otherwise, speak as if the prince had a distinct and
separate interest from the good of the community, and was not
made for it; the root and source from which spring almost all
those evils and disorders which happen in kingly governments.
And indeed, if that be so, the people under his government are
not a society of rational creatures, entered into a community for
their mutual good; they are not such as have set rulers over
themselves, to guard, and promote that good; but are to be looked
on as an herd of inferior creatures under the dominion of a
master, who keeps them and works them for his own pleasure or
profit.
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