And, therefore, by the same power or right, whereby the will of any man
concerning his property is held good, by the same also his will remains
good after his own death, as long as the commonwealth endures. And this
is the reason, why everyone in the civil state maintains after death the
same right as he had in his lifetime, because, as we said, it is not by
his own power, but by that of the commonwealth, which is everlasting,
that he can decide anything about his property. But the king's case is
quite different. For the king's will is the civil law itself, and the
king the commonwealth itself. Therefore, by the death of the king, the
commonwealth is in a manner dead, and the civil state naturally returns
to the state of nature, and consequently the supreme authority to the
multitude, which can, therefore, lawfully lay down new and abolish old
laws. And so it appears that no man succeeds the king by right, but him
whom the multitude wills to be successor, or in a theocracy, such as the
commonwealth of the Hebrews once was, him whom God has chosen by a
prophet. We might likewise infer this from the fact that the king's
sword, or right, is in reality the will of the multitude itself, or its
stronger part; or else from the fact, that men endowed with reason never
so utterly abdicate their right, that they cease to be men, and are
accounted as sheep. But to pursue this further is unnecessary.
26. But the right of religion, or of worshipping God, no man can
transfer to another.
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