And
thus all private judgment of every particular member being excluded,
the community comes to be umpire, and by understanding indifferent
rules and men authorised by the community for their execution, decides
all the differences that may happen between any members of that
society concerning any matter of right, and punishes those offences
which any member hath committed against the society with such
penalties as the law has established; whereby it is easy to discern
who are, and are not, in political society together. Those who are
united into one body, and have a common established law and judicature
to appeal to, with authority to decide controversies between them
and punish offenders, are in civil society one with another; but those
who have no such common appeal, I mean on earth, are still in the
state of Nature, each being where there is no other, judge for himself
and executioner; which is, as I have before showed it, the perfect
state of Nature.
88. And thus the commonwealth comes by a power to set down what
punishment shall belong to the several transgressions they think
worthy of it, committed amongst the members of that society (which
is the power of making laws), as well as it has the power to punish
any injury done unto any of its members by any one that is not of it
(which is the power of war and peace); and all this for the
preservation of the property of all the members of that society, as
far as is possible.
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