be executed, it is all one as
if there were no laws; and a government without laws is, I suppose, a
mystery in politics, unconceivable to human capacity, and inconsistent
with human society.

Sect. 220. In these and the like cases, when the government is
dissolved, the people are at liberty to provide for themselves, by
erecting a new legislative, differing from the other, by the change of
persons, or form, or both, as they shall find it most for their safety
and good: for the society can never, by the fault of another, lose the
native and original right it has to preserve itself, which can only be
done by a settled legislative, and a fair and impartial execution of the
laws made by it. But the state of mankind is not so miserable that they
are not capable of using this remedy, till it be too late to look for
any. To tell people they may provide for themselves, by erecting a new
legislative, when by oppression, artifice, or being delivered over to a
foreign power, their old one is gone, is only to tell them, they may
expect relief when it is too late, and the evil is past cure. This is in
effect no more than to bid them first be slaves, and then to take care
of their liberty; and when their chains are on, tell them, they may act
like freemen. This, if barely so, is rather mockery than relief; and men
can never be secure from tyranny, if there be no means to escape it till
they are perfectly under it: and therefore it is, that they have not
only a right to get out of it, but to prevent it.

Sect. 221. There is therefore, secondly, another way whereby governments
are dissolved, and that is, when the legislative, or the prince, either
of them, act contrary to their trust.

First, The legislative acts against the trust reposed in them, when they
endeavour to invade the property of the subject, and to make themselves,
or any part of the community, masters, or arbitrary disposers of the
lives, liberties, or fortunes of the people.

Sect. 222. The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of
their property; and the end why they chuse and authorize a legislative,
is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to
the properties of all the members of the society, to limit the power,
and moderate the dominion, of every part and member of the society: for
since it can never be supposed to be the will of the society, that the
legislative should have a power to destroy that which every one desig