determination of the majority: for that which acts any community, being
only the consent of the individuals of it, and it being necessary to that
which is one body to move one way; it is necessary the body should move
that way whither the greater force carries it, which is the consent of
the majority: or else it is impossible it should act or continue one
body, one community, which the consent of every individual that united
into it, agreed that it should; and so every one is bound by that consent
to be concluded by the majority. And therefore we see, that in
assemblies, impowered to act by positive laws, where no number is set by
that positive law which impowers them, the act of the majority passes for
the act of the whole, and of course determines, as having, by the law of
nature and reason, the power of the whole.
Sec. 97. And thus every man, by consenting with others to make one
body politic under one government, puts himself under an obligation, to
every one of that society, to submit to the determination of the
majority, and to be concluded by it; or else this original compact,
whereby he with others incorporates into one society, would signify
nothing, and be no compact, if he be left free, and under no other ties
than he was in before in the state of nature. For what appearance would
there be of any compact? what new engagement if he were no farther tied
by any decrees of the society, than he himself thought fit, and did
actually consent to? This would be still as great a liberty, as he
himself had before his compact, or any one else in the state of nature
hath, who may submit himself, and consent to any acts of it if he thinks
fit.
Sec. 98. For if the consent of the majority shall not, in reason, be
received as the act of the whole, and conclude every individual; nothing
but the consent of every individual can make any thing to be the act of
the whole: but such a consent is next to impossible ever to be had, if we
consider the infirmities of health, and avocations of business, which in