213. This being usually brought about by such in the commonwealth,
who misuse the power they have, it is hard to consider it aright,
and know at whose door to lay it, without knowing the form of
government in which it happens. Let us suppose, then, the
legislative placed in the concurrence of three distinct persons:-
First, a single hereditary person having the constant, supreme,
executive power, and with it the power of convoking and dissolving the
other two within certain periods of time. Secondly, an assembly of
hereditary nobility. Thirdly, an assembly of representatives chosen,
pro tempore, by the people. Such a form of government supposed, it
is evident:
214. First, that when such a single person or prince sets up his own
arbitrary will in place of the laws which are the will of the
society declared by the legislative, then the legislative is
changed. For that being, in effect, the legislative whose rules and
laws are put in execution, and required to be obeyed, when other
laws are set up, and other rules pretended and enforced than what
the legislative, constituted by the society, have enacted, it is plain
that the legislative is changed.
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