201. It is a mistake to think this fault is proper only to
monarchies. Other forms of government are liable to it as well as
that; for wherever the power that is put in any hands for the
government of the people and the preservation of their properties is
applied to other ends, and made use of to impoverish, harass, or
subdue them to the arbitrary and irregular commands of those that have
it, there it presently becomes tyranny, whether those that thus use it
are one or many. Thus we read of the thirty tyrants at Athens, as well
as one at Syracuse; and the intolerable dominion of the Decemviri at
Rome was nothing better.
202. Wherever law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be transgressed
to another's harm; and whosoever in authority exceeds the power
given him by the law, and makes use of the force he has under his
command to compass that upon the subject which the law allows not,
ceases in that to be a magistrate, and acting without authority may be
opposed, as any other man who by force invades the right of another.
This is acknowledged in subordinate magistrates. He that hath
authority to seize my person in the street may be opposed as a thief
and a robber if he endeavours to break into my house to execute a
writ, notwithstanding that I know he has such a warrant and such a
legal authority as will empower him to arrest me abroad.
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