SIS 
L A W. 
blies. It may, laftly, be notified by writing, printing, or 
the like ; which is the general courfe taken with all our 
aPls of parliament. Yet, whatever way is made ufe of, it 
is incumbent on the promulgators to do it in the molt 
public and perfpicuous manner; not like Caligula, who, 
according to Dio Call'us, wrote his laws in a very fmall 
character, and hung-them up upon high pillars, the more 
effectualiy to enfnare the people. There is ftill a more 
unreafonable method than this, which is called making of 
laws ex pojl failo-, when, after an action (indifferent in it- 
' fell) is committed, the legislature then for the lint time de¬ 
clares it to have been a crime, and infiifts a puniftiment 
upon the perfon who has committed it. And there is an 
extraordinary inftance, in the reign of Henry VIII. of an 
tK-pojl-faclo law, made for the purpefe of punifhing a cook 
who had been convidcd of throwing poifon into broth pre¬ 
pared for the bifhop of Rochefter’s family; namely, the 
ftat. 28 Hen. VIII. c. 9. by which the delinquent was or¬ 
dered to be boiled to death. Under fuch laws, ex pojl 
failo, after the offence is committed, it is impofiible that 
the party could forefee, that an aPtion, innocent when it 
was done, fhould be afterwards converted to guilt by a 
fubfequent law ; he had therefore no caufe to abftain from 
it; and all punitTiment for not abstaining muit of confe- 
quence be cruel and unjuft. All laws fliould be therefore 
made to commence in future, and be notified before their 
commencement; which is implied in the term “ pre¬ 
feribed.” But, when this rule is in the ufual manner no¬ 
tified or preferibed, it is then the fubjePUs bufinefs to be 
thoroughly acquainted therewith; for, if ignorante of 
what he might know were admitted as a legitimate ex- 
cufe, the laws would be of no effePf, but might always 
be eluded with impunity. 
4. Municipal law is “a rule of civil conduct preferibed 
by the fupreme power in a Jlate." For legiflature, as was be¬ 
fore obferved, is the greateft apt of luperiority that can 
be exercifed by one being over another. Wherefore it is 
requifite to the very effence of a law, that it be made by 
the fupreme power. Sovereignty and legiflature are in¬ 
deed convertible terms; one cannot fubfiil without the 
other. 
This will naturally lead ns into a fliort inquiry con¬ 
cerning the nature of fociety and civil government; and 
the natural inherent right that belongs to the fovereignty 
of a ftate, wherever that fovereignty be lodged, of making 
and enforcing laws. 
The only true and natural foundations of fociety are 
the wants and fears of individuals. Not that we can be¬ 
lieve, with fome theoretical writers, that there ever Was a 
time when there was no fuch thing as fociety ; and that, 
from the impulfe of reafon, and through a fenfe of their 
wants and weakneffes, individuals met together in a large 
plain, entered into an original contrail?, and chofe the tailed 
man prefent to be their governor. This notion, of an ac- 
tually-exifting unconnected ftate of nature, is tob wild 
to be ferioufly admitted ; and, befides, it is plainly contra- 
diptory to the revealed accounts of the primitive origin of 
mankind, and their prefervation 2000 years afterwards; 
both which were effePted by the means of Angle families. 
Thefe formed the fir It fociety among themfelves, which 
every day extended its limits ; arid, when it grew too 
large to fubflft with convenience in that paftoral ftate 
■wherein the patriarchs appear to have lived, it neceflarily 
fubdivided itfelf, by various migrations, into more. Af¬ 
terwards, as agriculture increafed, which employs and 
can maintain a much greater number cf hands, migrations 
became lels frequent ;.and various tribes,, which had for¬ 
merly feparated, re-united again ; fometimes by compulsion 
and conqueft, fometimes by accident, and fometimes per¬ 
haps by compaPh But, though fociety had not its formal 
beginning from any convention of individuals, aPfuated 
by their wants and their fears; yet it is the lenl'e of their 
weaknefs and imperfeption that keeps mankind together, 
that denWnftrates the necefiity of this union, and that 
therefore is the folid and natural foundation, as well as 
the cement, of fociety. And this is what we mean by 
the original contrail of fociety; which, though perhaps in 
no inftance it has ever been formally expreifed at the firft 
inftitution of a ftate, yet in nature and reafon muft always 
be underftood and implied in the very act of affociatinp* 
together; namely, that the whole fliould protect all its 
parts, and that every part fliould pay obedience to the will 
of the whole ; or, in other words, that the community 
fliould guard the rights of each individual member, and 
that, in return for this protePcion, each individual fliould 
fubmitto the laws of the community; without which fub- 
miffion of all, it was impofiible that protePlion could be 
certainly extended to any. 
For, when civil fociety is once formed, government re- 
fults cf courfe, as necefiary to preferve and to keep that 
fociety in order. Unlefs fome fuperior be conftituted, 
whofe commands and decifions all the members are bound 
to obey, they would ftill remain as in a ftate of nature, 
without any judge upon earth to define their feveral 
rights, and redrefs their feveral wrongs. But, as all the 
members of fociety are naturally equal, it may be afked. 
In whofe hands are the reins of government to be in¬ 
truded ? To this the general anfwer is eafy ; but the ap¬ 
plication of it to particular cafes has occafioned one half 
of thofe mifehiefs which are apt to proceed from mifgui- 
ded political zeal. In general, all mankind will agree, that 
government fhould be repofed in fuch perfons, in whom 
thofe qualities are moil likely to be found, the perfection 
of which is among the attributes of him w'ho is emphati¬ 
cally ftyled the Supreme Being ; the three grand requifites, 
namely, of wifdom, ofgoodnefs, and of power j wifeiom, 
to difeern the real intereft of the community ; goodnefs, 
to endeavour always to purfue that real intereft ; and 
ftrength or power to carry this knowledge and intention 
into aPlion. Thefe are the natural foundations of fove¬ 
reignty ; and thefe are the requifites that ought to be 
found in every well-conftituted frame of government. 
How the feveral forms of government we now fee in 
the world at firft aPIually began, is matter of great uncer¬ 
tainty, and has occafioned infinite difputes. But, how¬ 
ever they began, or by what right foever they fubfift, there 
is and muft be in all of them a fupreme, irrefiflible, ab- 
folute, uncontrolled, authority, in which the jura fummi 
imperii , or the rights of fovereignty, refide. And this au¬ 
thority is placed in thofe hands, wherein (according to 
the opinion of the founders of fuch refpePiive ftates, ei¬ 
ther exprefsly given or collePted from their tacit approba¬ 
tion) the qualities requifite for fupremacy, wifdom, good¬ 
nefs, and power, are the molt likely to be found. 
The political writers of antiquity will not allow more 
than three regular forms of government : 1. When the 
fovereign power is lodged in an aggregate affetnbly con¬ 
fiding of all the members of a community, which is called 
a democracy, a. When it is lodged in a council compofed 
of felePt members, and then it is ftyled an arijlocracy. 3. 
When it is intruded in the hands of a Angle perfon, and 
then it takes the name of a monarchy. All other fpecies 
of government, they fay, are either corruptions of, or re¬ 
ducible to, thefe three. 
By the fovereign power, as was before obferved, is meant 
the making of laws; for, wherever that power refides, all 
others muft conform to and be direPted by it, whatever 
appearance the outward form and adminiftration of the 
government rnay put on. For it is at any time in the op¬ 
tion of the legiflature to alter that form and adminiftration 
by a new edict or rule, and to put the execution cf the 
laws into whatever hands it pleafes; and all the other 
powers of the ftate muft obey the legiflative power in the 
execution of their feveral funptions, or elfe the conftitu- 
tiou is at an end. In a democracy, where the right of mak¬ 
ing laws refides in the people at large, public virtue or 
goodnefs of intention is more likely to be found than ei¬ 
ther of the other qualities of government. Popular af- 
femblies are frequently foolifn in their contrivance, and 
weak in their execution ; but generally mean to do the 
