163. And therefore they have a very wrong notion of government who
say that the people have encroached upon the prerogative when they
have got any part of it to be defined by positive laws. For in so
doing they have not pulled from the prince anything that of right
belonged to him, but only declared that that power which they
indefinitely left in his or his ancestors' hands, to be exercised
for their good, was not a thing they intended him, when he used it
otherwise. For the end of government being the good of the
community, whatsoever alterations are made in it tending to that end
cannot be an encroachment upon anybody; since nobody in government can
have a right tending to any other end; and those only are
encroachments which prejudice or hinder the public good. Those who say
otherwise speak as if the prince had a distinct and separate
interest from the good of the community, and was not made for it;
the root and source from which spring almost all those evils and
disorders which happen in kingly governments. And indeed, if that be
so, the people under his government are not a society of rational
creatures, entered into a community for their mutual good, such as
have set rulers over themselves, to guard and promote that good; but
are to be looked on as a herd of inferior creatures under the dominion
of a master, who keeps them and works them for his own pleasure or
profit.
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