greatest perfection that government can possibly reach.  Hence appears the absurdity of that distinction between a king de facto, and one de jure, with respect to us.  For every limited monarch is a king de jure, because he governs by the consent of the whole, which is authority sufficient to abolish all precedent right.  If a king come in by conquest, he is no longer a limited monarch, if he afterward consent to limitations, he becomes immediately king de jure for the same reason.

The great advocates for succession, who affirm it ought not to be violated upon any regard or consideration whatsoever, do insist much upon one argument that seems to carry little weight.  They would have it, that a crown is a prince’s birthright, and ought at least to be as well secured to him and his posterity as the inheritance of any private man:  In short, that he has the same title to his kingdom which every individual has to his property.  Now the consequence of this doctrine must be, that as a man may find several ways to waste, misspend, or abuse his patrimony, without being answerable to the laws; so a king may in like manner do what he will with his own, that is, he may squander and misapply his revenues, and even alienate the crown, without being called to an account by his subjects.  They allow such a prince to be guilty indeed of much folly and wickedness, but for those he is to answer to God, as every private man must do that is guilty of mismanagement in his own concerns.  Now the folly of this reasoning will best appear, by applying it in a parallel case.  Should any man argue, that a physician is supposed to understand his own art best; that the law protects and encourages his profession; and therefore although he should manifestly prescribe poison to all his patients, whereof they should immediately die, he cannot be justly punished, but is answerable only to God:  Or should the same be offered in behalf of a divine, who would preach against religion and moral duties; in either of these two cases everybody would find out the sophistry, and presently answer, that although common men are not exactly skilled in the composition or application of medicines, or in prescribing the limits of duty; yet the difference between poisons and remedies is easily known by their effects, and common reason soon distinguishes between virtue and vice:  And it must be necessary to forbid both these the further practice of their professions, because their crimes are not purely personal to the physician or the divine, but destructive to the public.  All which is infinitely stronger in respect to a prince, with whose good or ill conduct the happiness or misery of a whole nation is included; whereas it is of small consequence to the public, farther than examples, how any private person manages his property.

But granting that the right of a lineal successor to a crown were upon the same foot with the property of a subject, still It may at any time be transferred by the legislative power, as other properties frequently are.  The supreme power in a state can do no wrong, because whatever that doth, is the action of all; and when the lawyers apply this maxim to the king, they must understand it only in that sense as he is administrator of the supreme power, otherwise it is not universally true, but may be controlled in several instances easy to produce.