§. 160. This power to act according to discretion for the public good, without
the prescription of the law and sometimes even against it, is that which is
called prerogative; for since in some governments the law-making power is not
always in being and is usually too numerous, and so too slow for the dispatch
requisite to execution, and because, also, it is impossible to foresee and so
by laws to provide for all accidents and necessities that may concern the
public, or make such laws as will do no harm, if they are executed with an
inflexible rigour on all occasions and upon all persons that may come in their
way, therefore there is a latitude left to the executive power to do many
things of choice which the laws do not prescribe.
