1.We now come to the third topic touched upon in the digression;namely,the right,as our Author phrases it,which the Supreme Power has of making laws.And this topic occupies one pretty long paragraph.The title here given to it is the same which in the next succeeding paragraph he has found for it himself.This is fortunate:for,to have been obliged to find a title for it myself,is what would have been to the last degree distressing.
To intitle a discourse,is to represent the drift of it.But,to represent the drift of this,is a task which,so long at least as I confine my consideration to the paragraph itself,bids defiance to my utmost efforts.
2.`Tis to another passage or two,a passage or two that we have already seen starting up in distant parts of this digression,that I am indebted for such conjectures as I have been able to make up.
These conjectures,however,I could not have ventured so far to rely on,as on the strength of them to have furnished the paragraph with a title of my own framing.The danger of misrepresentation was too great;a kind of danger which a man cannot but lie imminently exposed to,who ventures to put a precise meaning upon a discourse which in itself has none.That I may just mention,however,in this place,the result of them;what he is really aiming at,I take it,is,to inculcate a persuasion that in every state there must subsist,in some hands or other,a power that is absolute.
I mention it thus prematurely,hat the reader may have some clue to guide him in his progress through the paragraph;which it is now time I should recite.
3.`Having',says our Author,`thus cursorily considered the three usual species of government,and our own singular constitution,selected and compounded from them all,I proceed to observe,that,as the power of making laws constitutes the supreme authority,so wherever the supreme authority in any state resides,it is the right of that authority to make laws;that is,in the words of our definition,to prescribe the rule of civil action.