Arbitrariedade

It is one thing for a government to be absolute, and another for it to be arbitrary. It is absolute with respect to constraint - there being no power capable of forcing the sovereign, who in this sense is independent of all human authority. But it does not follow from this that the government is arbitrary, for besides the fact that everything is subject to the judgment of God (which is also true of those governments we have just called arbitrary), there are also [constitutional] laws in empires, so that whatever is done against them is null in a legal sense [nul de droit]: and there is always an opportunity for redress, either on other occasions or in other times. Such that each person remains the legitimate possessor of his goods: no one being able to believe that he can possess anything with security to the prejudice of the laws - whose vigilance and action against injustices and acts of violence is deathless, as we have explained more fully elsewhere. This is what is called legitimate government, by its very nature the opposite of arbitrary government.