If men were so void of reason and brutish as to enter into
society upon such terms, prerogative might indeed be, what some men
would have it, an arbitrary power to do things hurtful to the people.
164. But since a rational creature cannot be supposed, when free, to
put himself into subjection to another for his own harm (though
where he finds a good and a wise ruler he may not, perhaps, think it
either necessary or useful to set precise bounds to his power in all
things), prerogative can be nothing but the people's permitting
their rulers to do several things of their own free choice where the
law was silent, and sometimes too against the direct letter of the
law, for the public good and their acquiescing in it when so done. For
as a good prince, who is mindful of the trust put into his hands and
careful of the good of his people, cannot have too much prerogative-
that is, power to do good, so a weak and ill prince, who would claim
that power his predecessors exercised, without the direction of the
law, as a prerogative belonging to him by right of his office, which
he may exercise at his pleasure to make or promote an interest
distinct from that of the public, gives the people an occasion to
claim their right and limit that power, which, whilst it was exercised
for their good, they were content should be tacitly allowed.
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