He reproduces and enforces the short definition that he had given of a commonwealth--that it consisted in the welfare of the entire people, by which word 'people' he does not mean the mob, but the community, bound together by the sense of common rights and mutual benefits.

He notices how important such just definitions are in all debates whatever, and draws this conclusion from the preceding arguments--that the Commonwealth is the common welfare whenever it is swayed with justice and wisdom, whether it be subordinated to a king, an aristocracy, or a democracy.

But if the king be unjust, and so becomes a tyrant; and the aristocracy unjust, which makes them a faction; or the democrats unjust, and so degenerate into revolutionists and destructives--then not only the Commonwealth is corrupted, but in fact annihilated.

For it can be no longer the common welfare when a tyrant or a faction abuse it; and the people itself is no longer the people when it becomes unjust, since it is no longer a community associated by a sense of right and utility, according to the definition."-- _Aug.

Civ.