BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Theological-Political Treatise
[8] Human society can thus be formed without any alienation of natural
right, and the contract can be preserved in its entirety with complete
¢delity, only if every person transfers all the power they possess to
society, and society alone retains the supreme natural right over all
things, i.e., supreme power, which all must obey, either of their own free
will or through fear of the ultimate punishment. The right of such a
society is called democracy. Democracy therefore is properly de¢ned as a
united gathering of people which collectively has the sovereign right to
do all that it has the power to do. It follows that sovereign power is
bound by no law and everyone is obliged to obey it in all things. For they
must all have made this agreement, tacitly or explicitly, when they
transferred their whole power of defending themselves, that is, their
whole right, to the sovereign authority. If they had wanted to keep any
right for themselves, they should have made this provision at the same
time as they could have safely defended it. Since they did not do so, and
could not have done it without dividing and therefore destroying its
authority, by that very fact they have submitted themselves to the sovereign’s
will. They have done so without reservation (as we have already
shown), compelled as they were by necessity and guided by reason. It
194 follows that unless we wish to be enemies of government and to act
against reason, which urges us to defend the government with all our
strength, we are obliged to carry out absolutely all the commands of the
sovereign power, however absurd they may be. Reason too bids us do so:
it is a choice of the lesser of two evils.
[9] It was not di⁄cult, moreover, for each person to take this risk of
submitting himself absolutely to the power and will of another. For sovereigns,
we showed, retain the right to command whatever they wish only so
long as they truly hold supreme power. If they lose it, they at the same time
also lose the right of decreeing all things, which passes to the man or men
who have acquired it and can retain it.This is why it can very rarely happen
that sovereigns issue totally absurd commands. To protect their position
and retain power, they are very much obliged to work for the common
good and direct all things by the dictate of reason; for no one has maintained
a violent government for long, as Seneca says. 5 Furthermore, there
is less reason in a democratic state to fear absurd proceedings. For it is
5 Seneca,TheTrojan Women, 258^9.
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