Book 3, Part 5 Summary and Analysis

Chapter 16, "That the Institution of Government is not a Contract"

At this point, the author suggests that the establishment of some kind of executive power in government is necessary. He points out that if the Sovereign Will itself enacted laws, "right and fact would be so confounded that there would be no means of distinguishing what was or was not law" and the body politic would fall apart. This is the reason, the author asserts, that a Prince in government is necessary: to do what the people, as members of the Sovereign Will and the body politic, cannot or should not do. He also suggests that those Princes, whom he describes as an executive body of government, are fulfilling their duty as citizens - members of the body politic - not their will as individuals. He describes such an...