 Yet, as elsewhere in John’s writings, this religious dimension of tyrannicide is paralleled by a philosophical justification that depends on reason alone. Because John considers tyranny to be a crime against “the body of justice itself” (PC: 25), he invokes the organic nature of the community to explain the legitimacy, albeit rare, of tyrannicide. Inasmuch as one enjoys membership in the political community, one may ultimately be responsible—based on each part’s duty to see justice served in the whole—for eradicating the incorrigible tyrant. John does not believe that such action should be undertaken lightly, specifying a set of conditions that must be met prior to eliminating a tyrant (PC: 209; see 207–09 for the paradigmatic proper tyrannicide). Following from his naturalistic paradigm, John asserts that “whoever does not prosecute [the tyrant] transgresses against himself and against the whole body of the secular republic” (PC: 25). Note that slaying a tyrant, under the caveats John specifies, falls within the general obligation on the part of every member of the political body, without distinction, to pursue justice. Since the health of each depends upon the health of all, John posits a strong link between the organic nature of social and political order and the widespread public defense of that order, extending even to the act of removing a tyrant (on John’s use of medical metaphors, see Shogimen and Nederman 2011).