Nor, as Hobbes argued, is the form of government permanent in character; the supreme community is as capable of making temporary as of registering irrevocable decisions.

And though Locke admits that monarchy, from its likeness to the family, is the most primitive type of government, he denies Hobbes' assertion that it is the best.

It seems, in his view, always to degenerate into the hands of lesser men who betray the contract they were appointed to observe.

Nor is oligarchy much better off since it emphasizes the interest of a group against the superior interest of the community as a whole.

Democracy alone proffers adequate safeguards of an enduring good rule; a democracy, that is to say, which is in the hands of delegates controlled by popular election.