BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Theological-Political Treatise
[11] With this, I think, the fundamentals of the democratic republic
are made su⁄ciently clear, this being the form of state I chose to discuss
¢rst, because it seems to be the most natural and to be that which
approaches most closely to the freedom nature bestows on every person.
In a democracy no one transfers their natural right to another in such a way
that they are not thereafter consulted but rather to the majority of the whole
society ofwhich they are a part. In this way all remain equal as they had been
previously, in the state of nature. Also, this is the only form of government
that Iwant to discuss explicitly, since it is the most relevant to my design, my
purpose being to discuss the advantage of liberty in a state. Accordingly,
I disregard the foundations of the other forms of government. To understand
their right, we do not need now to know how they have arisen and
often still arise, since that is clear enough from what we have just proved.
Whether the holder of sovereign power is one or a few or all, indubitably the
supreme right of commanding whatever they wish belongs to him or them.
Besides, anyone who has transferred their power of defending themselves to
another, whether freely or under compulsion, has clearly surrendered his
natural right and has consequently decided to obey the other absolutely, in
all things; and they are wholly obligated to do so as long as the king, nobility,
or people preserves the supreme power they received, given that this was the
ground for the transfer of jurisdiction.We do not need to say more.
[12] Now that we have established the foundations and right of the state,
196 it will be easy to show what, in the civil state, is the civil right of the citizen,
what an o¡ence is and what justice and injustice are; we can also readily
explain who is an ally, who an enemy, and what the crime of treason is.
[13] We can mean nothing by the civil right of the citizen other than the
freedom of each person to conserve themselves in their own condition,
which is determined by the edicts of the sovereign power and protected by
its authority alone. For as soon as someone has transferred to another their
right to live by their own free will as determined solely by their own
authority, that is, once theyhave transferred their liberty and their power to
defend themselves, they must live solely by the judgment of the other and
be defended exclusively by his forces.
[14] An o¡ence is committed when a citizen or subject is compelled by
another person to su¡er a loss, contrary to the civil law or the edict of the
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