§. 132. THE majority having, as has been showed, upon men's first uniting into
society, the whole power of the community naturally in them, may employ all
that power in making laws for the community from time to time, and executing
those laws by officers of their own appointing, and then the form of the
government is a perfect democracy; or else may put the power of making laws
into the hands of a few select men, and their heirs or successors, and then it
is an oligarchy; or else into the hands of one man, and then it is a monarchy;
if to him and his heirs, it is a hereditary monarchy; if to him only for life,
but upon his death the power only of nominating a successor, to return to them,
an elective monarchy. And so accordingly of these make compounded and mixed
forms of government, as they think good. And if the legislative power be at
first given by the majority to one or more persons only for their lives, or any
limited time, and then the supreme power to revert to them again, when it is so
reverted the community may dispose of it again anew into what hands they
please, and so constitute a new form of government; for the form of government
depending upon the placing the supreme power, which is the legislative, it
being impossible to conceive that an inferior power should prescribe to a
superior, or any but the supreme make laws, according as the power of making
laws is placed, such is the form of the commonwealth.
