Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/49

 out of his difficulty into a self-contradiction: the “reason,” he said, of the people, which had constituted the original form of the government, remained in the two Houses. Accordingly, they might provide for the public safety in time of danger, and declare the law in final resort. The fallacy is plainly apparent. If a contract between A and X intrusts powers over X to A, B, and C, it certainly does not follow that B and C may interpret the contract to the exclusion of both A and X.

The author’s difficulty arose from the fact that he dared not ascribe active power of any sort to the people; therefore he could not say that X had hired A as his servant, or indeed distinguish X from B and C. Had he lodged the “reason” of the people elsewhere than in the two Houses, Royalists would have criticised his constitution as sure to end in an anarchical democracy. He protested bitterly against such an interpretation of the parliamentary position.

To a man with a fine sense of logic, the task of proving that thirty peers and three hundred members of the House of Commons rightfully exercised