§. 96. For, when any number of men have, by the consent of every individual,
made a community, they have thereby made that community one body, with a power
to act as one body, which is only by the will and determination of the
majority. For that which acts any community, being only the consent of the
individuals of it, and it being one body, must move one way, it is necessary
the body should move that way whither the greater force carries it, which is
the consent of the majority, or else it is impossible it should act or continue
one body, one community, which the consent of every individual that united into
it agreed that it should; and so every one is bound by that consent to be
concluded by the majority. And therefore we see that in assemblies empowered to
act by positive laws where no number is set by that positive law which empowers
them, the act of the majority passes for the act of the whole, and of course
determines as having, by the law of Nature and reason, the power of the whole.
