¿Podrán entonces los mandatos de un príncipe ser objeto de oposición? ¿Podrá hacérseles resistencia siempre que alguien se encuentre agraviado y simplemente imagine que no se le ha hecho justicia? Esto desquiciará y trastornará toda política, y, en lugar de gobierno y orden, no dejará sino anarquía y confusión.
A esto respondo que la fuerza no ha de oponerse sino a la fuerza injusta e ilegal; quienquiera que haga cualquier oposición en cualquier otro caso, atrae sobre sí una justa condena tanto por parte de Dios como del hombre; y así no se seguirá tal peligro o confusión como a menudo se sugiere: porque,
First, As, in some countries, the person of the prince by the law is sacred; and so, whatever he commands or does, his person is still free from all question or violence, not liable to force, or any judicial censure or condemnation. But yet opposition may be made to the illegal acts of any inferior officer, or other commissioned by him; unless he will, by actually putting himself into a state of war with his people, dissolve the government, and leave them to that defence which belongs to everyone in the state of nature: for of such things who can tell what the end will be? and a neighbour kingdom has showed the world an odd example. In all other cases the sacredness of the person exempts him from all inconveniencies, whereby he is secure, whilst the government stands, from all violence and harm whatsoever; than which there cannot be a wiser constitution; for the harm he can do in his own person not being likely to happen often, nor to extend itself far; nor being able by his single strength to subvert the laws, nor oppress the body of the people; should any prince have so much weakness and ill-nature as to be willing to do it, the inconvenience of some particular mischiefs that may happen sometimes, when a heady prince comes to the throne, are well