3. Since, then, it is the right of the supreme authority alone to handle
public matters, or choose officials to do so, it follows, that that
subject is a pretender to the dominion, who, without the supreme
council's knowledge, enters upon any public matter, although he believe
that his design will be to the best interest of the commonwealth.
4. But it is often asked, whether the supreme authority is bound by
laws, and, consequently, whether it can do wrong. Now as the words "law"
and "wrong-doing" often refer not merely to the laws of a commonwealth,
but also to the general rules which concern all natural things, and
especially to the general rules of reason, we cannot, without
qualification, say that the commonwealth is bound by no laws, or can do
no wrong. For were the commonwealth bound by no laws or rules, which
removed, the commonwealth were no commonwealth, we should have to regard
it not as a natural thing, but as a chimera. A commonwealth then does
wrong, when it does, or suffers to be done, things which may be the
cause of its own ruin; and we can say that it then does wrong, in the
sense in which philosophers or doctors say that nature does wrong; and
in this sense we can say, that a commonwealth does wrong, when it acts
against the dictate of reason. For a commonwealth is most independent
when it acts according to the dictate of reason (Chap. III. Sec. 7); so
far, then, as it acts against reason, it fails itself, or does wrong.
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