Johannes Althusius: Politica - Hubertlerch.com - HubertLerch.com

Althusius_0002
9/10/05 4:09 PM
[§ 8] But, you may ask, how can a government be called a monarchy when the power of the monarch is not absolute and free,
when it is understood to be confined within certain prescribed limits and to be able to do nothing against the laws and the will of
ephors and universal councils of the realm? Obviously liberty, as the jurists say, is to be defined as the natural faculty by which
each person is permitted to do what he wishes unless something is prohibited by force or law. Even the emperor acknowledges
himself to be bound by laws.
4
For this reason our authority depends upon the authority of law. And indeed it is better for
imperium to submit its dominion to laws. Thus, for an emperor to be unable and forbidden to do wicked and prohibited things
does not take away from his power or his liberty, but defines the ends and deeds in which his true power and liberty consist. For
it is not the property of imperium that it is able to rule in any manner whatever, nor is it the property of power that it can do
anything whatever, but only what agrees with nature and right reason. So God is not able to lie, as the Apostle Paul said,
5
nor
can he make two different things, such as light and darkness, exist at the same time in the same place. He is not for this reason
less omnipotent. Nor is the king said to be impotent because he cannot ascend into the heavens, touch the skies with his hand,
move mountains, or empty the ocean. Therefore, the supreme power of the monarch will consist in what is circumscribed by
justice, laws, and right reason ( jus, leges, et recta ratio), not in unrestrained and unbridled action against nature and reason.
6
It
is therefore appropriate to reason and nature that the covenants and laws of the realm to which the king has sworn be upheld,
and that the consent of counselors and optimates be obtained in ardous matters. …
[§ 9] The types of commonwealth are to be determined by the more pre-eminent, prevalent, and predominate part, just as in
the constitutions and temperaments of man. For although those who are either sanguine or phlegmatic or choleric or melancholy
can be lacking in none of the four temperaments ( humores) without risk of life, it nevertheless happens that each man is
characterized by one of these temperaments more than by the others. Whence from the predominating and more powerful
temperament a man is called sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, or melancholy.
7
In a similar way the commonwealth can also be
compared to the human body so far as the types of its administration are concerned. [§ 10] For what administration of a
commonwealth can exist or endure that lacks either intermediate magistrates or estates or counselors or a definite head?
Moreover, the estates, as I have said, represent the aristocratic element, the councils the democratic, and the head—whether it
be one person or many in the place of one—the monarchic. This is similar to the human body in which the head has the likeness
of the ruling king, the heart with its five external senses has the likeness of the estates, and the remaining members of the body
together have the likeness of the entire people or populace. These intermediate magistrates frequently depend immediately upon
the people when it predominates, in which case the people prescribes the principles of their administration, and constitutes and
dismisses them. In this event the government is called a democracy. [§ 11] Sometimes they are dependent immediately upon
one person who predominates. Whence it is called a monarchy. At other times they are dependent upon one, two, three, or four
who predominate, and for this reason the government is called an aristocracy. …
[§ 13] If you further ask what is the democratic element in monarchy and aristocracy, I respond that in both it is the
assemblies of the realm in which the people has reserved to itself the right to vote ( jus sufragii ). [§ 14] On the other hand, if
you ask what is the aristocratic element in democracy and monarchy, I respond that it is the estates of the realm and the
intermediate magistrates. Monarchy is represented in aristocracy and democracy by the concord and consensus of those who rule
in which many voices are accounted as one voice and will. Without this common will aristocracy and democracy cannot endure;
they immediately disappear and are transformed into other types of administration. [§ 15] Since these things are so, as we
affirm, every type of commonwealth is mixed, just as the constitution of man, as we have said, is combined from four
temperaments. For what is monarchic in a commonwealth conserves and restrains in office what is aristocratic and democratic;
and what is aristocratic and democratic checks and restrains in office what is monarchic. This arrangement is best, and is more
likely to endure. [§ 16] Remedies are thus brought forth for various faults and vices to which single types of commonwealths in
themselves are subject. This happens no less than in the human body where a choleric disposition is mitigated by a phlegmatic
one, and a sanguine disposition is restrained by a melancholy one. Thus one bodily disposition may be the preservation of
another, and vices arising from excess and from deficiency may correct each other. It is evident that a polity is to be judged best
that combines the qualities of kingship, aristocracy, and democracy.
Vincent Cabot, however, asserts that a state is called mixed when the king has one kind of supreme power, the senate another,
and the people still another.
8
Indeed, he calls it mixed when they have the same power, but not over the same things, as when
the people has responsibility over the citizens and the senate over aliens. It will also be a mixed state, he says, if the king,
senate, and people have the same power over the same things. Likewise it is mixed when the laws are made by the decision of
the king, senate, and people; when the king, senate, and people rule at the same time; or when the senate or people alone can
do nothing without the king. But I do not approve of these mixtures. Nor does use and practice admit them, except so far as the
http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/EBook.php?recordID=0002
Page 122 of 132