The truth is,I take it,that in what our Author has said of power,he has been speaking,as it were,by anticipation:and that what he means by it,is not any power of either kind actually possessed by any man,or body of men,at the juncture he supposes,but only a capacity,if one may call it so,of retaining and putting into action political power,whensoever it shall have been conferred.Now,of actual power,the quantity that is possessed is,in every case,one and the same:for it is neither more nor less than the supreme power.But as to the capacity above spoken of,there do seem,indeed,to be good grounds for supposing it to subsist in a higher degree in a single man than in a body.
10.These grounds it will not be expected that I should display at large:
a slight sketch will be sufficient.The efficacy of power is,in part at least,in proportion to the promptitude of obedience:the promptitude of obedience is,in part,in proportion to the promptitude of command:command is an expression of will:a will is sooner formed by one than many.And this,or something like it,I take to be the plain English of our Author's metaphor,where he tells us,(59)as we shall see a little farther on,(60)that `a monarchy is the most powerful'(form of government)`of any,all the sinews of government being knit together,and united in the hands of the prince.'
11.The next paragraph,short as it is,contains variety of matter.
The first two sentences of it are to let us know,that with regard to the manner in which each of the particular governments that we know of have been formed,he thinks proper to pass it by.A third is to intimate,for the second time,that all governments must be absolute in some hands or other.In the fourth and last,he favours us with a very comfortable piece of intelligence;the truth of which,but for his averment,few of us perhaps would have suspected.This is,that the qualifications mentioned by the last paragraph as requisite to be possessed by all Governors of states are,or at least once upon a time were,actually possessed by them:(i.e.)according to the opinion of somebody;but of what somebody is not altogether clear:whether in the opinion of these Governors themselves,or of the persons governed by them.