The Whole Duty of Man, According to the Law of Nature

Chap. 8. Of the several Forms of Government

u c h a p t e r v i i i u Of the several Forms of Government41 The Supreme Power consider’d either as it resides in a Single Man, or in a Select Council or Assembly of Men, or of All in General, produces diverse Forms of Government. Now the Forms of Government are either Regular or Irregular. Of the first Sort are those where the supreme Power is so united in one particular Subject, that the same being firm and intire, it carries on, by one supreme Will, the whole Business of Government. Where this is not found, the Form of Government must of Necessity be Irregular. There are Three Regular Forms of Government:42 The First is, When the supreme Authority is in One Man; and that is call’d a Monarchy. The Second, When the same is lodged in a select Number of Men; and that is an Aristocracy. The Third, When it is in a Council or Assembly of Free-holders and Principal Citizens; and that is a Democracy. In the First, he who bears the supreme Rule, is stil’d, A Monarch; in the Second, the Nobles; and in the Third, The People. 41. Here Tooke uses “Government” to translate Pufendorf’s respublica. While accurate enough in itself, this leads to a degree of confusion in the present context, because of Tooke’s propensity to also use “government” to translate Pufendorf’s “state,” or civitas. The problem is that in this chapter Pufendorf draws a crucial distinction between state (civitas) and form of government (respublica), identifying the former with the principle of sovereignty—that is, the principle of a supreme unified political authority—and the latter with the three governmental forms (monarchical, aristocratic, democratic) in which sovereignty can be exercised. 42. One of the most distinctive features of Pufendorf’s construction of sovereignty and the state is that it is neutral between the three standard forms of government : monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. In tying the legitimacy of sovereignty to the achievement of security and social peace—rather than to the representation of a prior moral will (God’s or the people’s)—Pufendorf can accept the legitimacy of all three forms of government, to the extent that each succeeds in exercising supreme political power in the interests of security. I. Diverse Forms. L. N. N. l. 7. c. 5. II. Regular and Irregular. III. Three Regular Forms. L. N. N. l. 7. c. 5. §2. 203 204 the whole duty of man In all these Forms, the Power is indeed the same. But in one Respect Monarchy has a considerable Advantage above the rest; because in order to deliberate and determine, that is, actually to exercise the Government , there is no Necessity of appointing and fixing certain Times and Places; for he may deliberate and determine in any Place, and at any Time; so that a Monarch is always in a Readiness to perform the necessary Actions of Government. But that the Nobles and the People, who are not as one natural Person, may be able so to do, it is necessary that they meet at certain Times and Places, there to debate and resolve upon all publick Business. For the Will and Pleasure of a Council, or of the People, which results from the Majority of Votes concentring, can no otherwise be discover’d. But, as it happens in other Matters, so in Governments also it falls out, That the same may be sometimes well, and at other times scurvily and foolishly managed. Whence it comes to pass, that some States are reputed Sound, and others Distemper’d. Yet we are not, on Account of these Imperfections, to multiply the several Species or Forms of Government , imagining that these several Defects make different Sorts of Governments; for these Vices or Defects, though different in themselves , do not, however, either change the Nature of the Authority it self, or the proper Subject in which it resides. Now these Defects or Vices in Government, do sometimes arise from the Persons who administer the Government; and sometimes they arise from the Badness of the Constitution it self. Whence the First are styl’d, Imperfections of the Men, and the Latter, Imperfections of the State. The Imperfections of the Men in a Monarchy are, when he who possesses the Throne, is not well skilled in the Arts of Ruling, and takes none, or but a very slight Care for the publick Good, prostituting the...