ndent
when it acts according to the dictate of reason; so far, then, as it
acts against reason, it fails itself, or does wrong. And we shall be
able more easily to understand this if we reflect that when we say, that
a man can do what he will with his own, this authority must be limited
not only by the power of the agent, but by the capacity of the object.
If, for instance, I say that I can rightfully do what I will with this
table, I do not certainly mean that I have the right to make it eat
grass. So, too, though we say, that men depend not on themselves, but on
the commonwealth, we do not mean, that men lose their human nature and
put on another; nor yet that the commonwealth has the right to make men
wish for this or that, or (what is just as impossible) regard with
honor things which excite ridicule or disgust. But it is implied that
there are certain intervening circumstances which supposed, one likewise
supposes the reverence and fear of the subjects towards the
commonwealth, and which abstracted, one makes abstraction likewise of
that fear and reverence, and therewith of the commonwealth itself. The
commonwealth, then, to maintain its independence, is bound to preserve
the causes of fear and reverence, otherwise it ceases to be a
commonwealth. For the person or persons that hold dominion can no more
combine with the keeping up of majesty the running with harlots drunk or
naked about the streets, or the performances of a stage-player, or the
open violation or contempt of laws passed by themselves, than they can
combine existence with non-existence. But to proceed to slay and rob
subjects, ravish maidens, and the like, turns fear into indignation and
the civil state into a state of enmity.

We see, then, in what sense we may say, that a commonwealth is bound by
laws and can do wrong. But if by "law" we understand civil law, and by
"wrong" that which, by civil law, is forbidden to be done, that is, if
these words be taken in their proper sense, we cannot at all say that a
commonwealth is bound by laws or can do wrong. For the maxims and
motives of fear and reverence which a commonwealth is bound to observe
in its own interest, pertain not to civil jurisprudence, but to the law
of Nature, since they cannot be vindicated by the civil law, but by the
law of war. And a commonwealth is bound by them in no other sense than
that in which in the state of Nature a man is bound to take heed that
he preserve his independence