derscore the point that the community, regardless of its form of government, exists for the commonwealth, for the good of all. The preservation of the society and of every person in it is the first and fundamental natural law. As is the establishment of legislative power the first and fundamental positive law of all commonwealths. This legislative is not only the supreme power of the commonwealth, but sacred and unalterable in the hands where the community have once placed it(359). Locke identifies the legislative power as being the most important part of the government. No one may challenge the power of the legislative body, or pass laws of their own; the majority invests all such power in this body and every member of society must adhere to the laws laid down by the legislative body. There are limits though to the power the legislative body possesses. The first is that the legislator cannot be absolutely arbitrary over the lives and fate of the people. Their power in the utmost bounds of it, is limited to the public good of the society. It is a power, that has no other end but preservation, and therefore can never have a right to destroy, enslave or designedly to impoverish the subjects(360). Moreover, the rules that the legislator makes for other mens actions must be comparable to the law of Nature. Secondly the legislative is bound to dispense justice. Thirdly, without the consent of man, the supreme power cannot take away his property. The last limitation of the legislator is that the legislator cannot transfer the power delegated to him of making laws to another.Despite the high powers of the legislature, the people are still supreme over all, and have the power to remove or alter the legislation, as they deem best. There can be but one supreme power, which is the legislative, to which all the rest are and must be subordinate, yet the legislative being only a fiduciary power to act for certain ends, there remains sti...
