is sovereign over individuals only as dependent on God. Her
dominion is then not original and absolute, but secondary and
derivative.

This third theory does not err in assuming that the people
collectively are more than the people individually, or in denying
society to be a mere aggregation of individuals with no life, and
no rights but what it derives from them; nor even in asserting
that the people in the sense of society are sovereign, but in
asserting that they are sovereign in their own native or
underived right and might. Society has not in herself the
absolute right to govern, because she has not the absolute
dominion either of herself or her members. God gave to man
dominion over the irrational creation, for he made irrational
creatures for man; but he never gave him either individually or
collectively the dominion over the rational creation. The theory
that the people are absolutely sovereign in their own independent
right and might, as some zealous democrats explain it, asserts
the fundamental principle of despotism, and all despotism is
false, for it identifies the creature with the Creator. No
creature is creator, or has the rights of creator, and
consequently no one in his own right is or can be sovereign.
This third theory, therefore, is untenable.

IV. A still more recent class of philosophers, if philosophers
they may be called, reject the origin of government in the people
individually or collectively. Satisfied that it has never been
instituted by a voluntary and deliberate act of the people, and
confounding government as a fact with government as authority,
maintain that government is a spontaneous development of nature.