of natural history; in a word, in any form rather | surrection of damnation:"-he had pronounced a than the right one, that of a professed and regular message of inestimable importance, and well wordisquisition. And because the coarse buffoonery, thy of that splendid apparatus of prophecy and miraand broad laugh, of the old and rude adversaries cles with which his mission was introduced and atof the Christian faith, would offend the taste, tested: a message in which the wisest of mankind perhaps, rather than the virtue, of this cultivated would rejoice to find an answer to their doubts, age, a graver irony, a more skilful and delicate and rest to their inquiries. It is idle to say, that banter, is substituted in their place. An eloquent a future state had been discovered already:-it historian, beside his more direct, and therefore had been discovered as the Copernican system fairer attacks upon the credibility of Evangelic was,-it was one guess among many. He alone story, has contrived to weave into his narration one discovers, who proves; and no man can prove continued sneer upon the cause of Christianity, this point, but the teacher who testifies by miracles and upon the writings and characters of its ancient that his doctrine comes from God. patrons. The knowledge which this author possesses of the frame and conduct of the human mind, must have led him to observe, that such atWho tacks do their execution without inquiry. can refute a sneer? Who can compute the number, much less, one by one, scrutinize the justice, of those disparaging insinuations which crowd the pages of this elaborate history? What reader suspends his curiosity, or calls off his attention from the principal narrative, to examine references, or to search into the foundation, or to weigh the reason, propriety, and force, of every transient sarcasm, and sly allusion, by which the Christian testimony is depreciated and traduced: and by which, nevertheless, he may find his persuasion afterwards unsettled and perplexed?

BOOK VI.

ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE.

CHAPTER I.

Of the Origin of Civil Government. GOVERNMENT, at first, was either patriarchal or military that of a parent over his family, or of a commander over his fellow-warriors.

I. Paternal authority, and the order of domestic But the enemies of Christianity have pursued life, supplied the foundation of civil government. her with poisoned arrows. Obscurity itself is Did mankind spring out of the earth mature and made the vehicle of infidelity. The awful doc-independent, it would be found perhaps impossible to introduce subjection and subordination among trines, if we be not permitted to call them the sacred truths, of our religion, together with all the them: but the condition of human infancy preadjuncts and appendages of its worship and ex- pares men for society, by combining individuals ternal profession, have been sometimes impudent- into small communities, and by placing them from ly profaned by an unnatural conjunction with the beginning, under direction and control. A impure and lascivious images. The fondness for family contains the rudiments of an empire. The ridicule is almost universal: and ridicule, to many authority of one over many, and the disposition to minds, is never so irresistible, as when seasoned govern and to be governed, are in this way inciwith obscenity, and employed upon religion. But dental to the very nature, and coeval no doubt with in proportion as these noxious principles take hold the existence, of the human species. of the imagination, they infatuate the judgment: Moreover, the constitution of families not only for trains of ludicrous and unchaste associations assists the formation of civil government, by the adhering to every sentiment and mention of re-dispositions which it generates, but also furnishes ligion, render the mind indisposed to receive either conviction from its evidence, or impressions from its authority. And this effect being exerted upon the sensitive part of our frame, is altogether independent of argument, proof, or reason; is as formidable to a true religion, as to a false one; to a well grounded faith, as to a chimerical mythology, or fabulous tradition. Neither, let it be observed, is the crime or danger less, because impure ideas are exhibited under a veil, in covert and chastised language.

the first steps of the process by which empires have been actually reared. A parent would retain a considerable part of his authority after his children were grown up, and had formed families of their own.

The obedience of which they remembered not the beginning, would be considered as natural; and would scarcely, during the parent's life, be entirely or abruptly withdrawn. Here then we see the second stage in the progress of dominion. The first was, that of a parent over his young children; this, that of an ancestor presiding over his adult descendants.

Seriousness is not constraint of thought; nor levity, freedom. Every mind which wishes the Although the original progenitor was the centre advancement of truth and knowledge, in the most of union to his posterity, yet it is not probable important of all human researches, must abhor that the association would be immediately or altothis licentiousness, as violating no less the laws of gether dissolved by his death. Connected by hareasoning, than the rights of decency. There is bits of intercourse and affection, and by some but one description of men, to whose principles it common rights, necessities, and interests, they ought to be tolerable; I mean that class of reason- would consider themselves as allied to each other ers who can see little in Christianity, even sup-in a nearer degree than to the rest of the species. posing it to be true. To such adversaries we address this reflection-Had Jesus Christ delivered no other declaration than the following-"The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the grave shall hear his voice, and shall come forth: they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the re

Almost all would be sensible of an inclination to continue in the society in which they had been brought up; and experiencing, as they soon would do, many inconveniences from the absence of that authority which their common ancestor exercised, especially in deciding their disputes, and directing their operations in matters in which it was ne

cessary to act in conjunction, they might be in-supporting the succession of his children: add to duced to supply his place by a formal choice of these reasons, that elections to the supreme power a successor; or rather might willingly, and almost having, upon trial, produced destructive contenimperceptibly, transfer their obedience to some tions, many states would take a refuge from a reone of the family, who by his age or services, or turn of the same calamities in a rule of succession; by the part he possessed in the direction of their and no rule presents itself so obvious, certain, and affairs during the lifetime of the parent, had al- intelligible, as consanguinity of birth. ready taught them to respect his advice, or to attend to his commands; or lastly, the prospect of these inconveniences might prompt the first ancestor to appoint a successor; and his posterity, from the same motive, united with an habitual deference to the ancestor's authority, might receive the appointment with submission. Here then we have a tribe or clan incorporated under one chief. Such communities might be increased by considerable numbers, and fulfil the purposes of civil union without any other or more regular convention, constitution, or form of government, than what we have described. Every branch which was slipped off from the primitive stock, and removed to a distance from it, would in like manner take root, and grow into a separate clan. Two or three of these clans were frequently, we may suppose, united into one. Marriage, conquest, mutual defence, common distress, or more accidental coalitions, might produce this effect.

II. A second source of personal authority, and which might easily extend, or sometimes perhaps supersede, the patriarchal, is that which results from military arrangement. In wars, either of aggression or defence, manifest necessity would prompt those who fought on the same side to array themselves under one leader. And although their leader was advanced to this eminence for the purpose only, and during the operations, of a single expedition, yet his authority would not always terminate with the reasons for which it was conferred. A warrior who had led forth his tribe against their enemies, with repeated success, would procure to himself, even in the deliberations of peace, a powerful and permanent influence. If this advantage were added to the authority of the patriarchal chief, or favoured by any previous distinction of ancestry, it would be no difficult undertaking for the person who possessed it, to obtain the almost absolute direction of the affairs of the community; especially if he was careful to associate to himself proper auxiliaries, and content to practise the obvious art of gratifying or removing those who opposed his preten

sions.

The ancient state of society in most countries, and the modern condition of some uncivilized parts of the world, exhibit that appearance which this account of the origin of civil government would lead us to expect. The earliest histories of Palestine, Greece, Italy, Gaul, Britain, inform us, that these countries were occupied by many small independent nations, not much perhaps unlike those which are found at present amongst the savage inhabitants of North America, and upon the coast of Africa. These nations I consider as the amplifications of so many single families; or as derived from the junction of two or three families, whom society in war, or the approach of some common danger, had united. Suppose a country to have been first peopled by shipwreck on its coasts, or by emigrants or exiles from a neighbouring country; the new settlers, having no enemy to provide against, and occupied with the care of their personal subsistence, would think little of digesting a system of laws, of contriving a form of government, or indeed of any political union whatever; but each settler would remain at the head of his own family, and each family would include all of every age and generation who were descended from him. So many of these families as were holden together after the death of the original ancestor, by the reasons and in the method above recited, would wax, as the individuals were multiplied, into tribes, clans, hordes, or nations, similar to those into which the ancient inhabitants of many countries are known to have been divided, and which are still found wherever the state of society and manners is immature and uncultivated.

Nor need we be surprised at the early existence in the world of some vast empires, or at the rapidity with which they advanced to their greatness, from comparatively small and obscure originals. Whilst the inhabitants of so many countries were broken into numerous communities, unconnected, and oftentimes contending with each other; before experience had taught these little states to see their own danger in their neighbour's ruin; or had instructed them in the necesBut although we may be able to comprehend sity of resisting the aggrandizement of an ashow by his personal abilities or fortune one man piring power, by alliances, and timely preparamay obtain the rule over many, yet it seems more tions; in this condition of civil policy, a particular difficult to explain how empire became hereditary, tribe, which by any means had gotten the start of or in what manner sovereign power, which is the rest in strength or discipline, and happened to never acquired without great merit or manage- fall under the conduct of an ambitious chief, by ment, learns to descend in a succession which has directing their first attempts to the part where no dependance upon any qualities either of un- success was most secure, and by assuming, as derstanding or activity. The causes which have they went along, those whom they conquered into introduced hereditary dominion into so general aa share of their future enterprises, might soon gareception in the world, are principally the follow-ther a force which would infallibly overbear any ing-the influence of association, which com- opposition that the scattered power and unpromunicates to the son a portion of the same respect vided state of such enemies could make to the which was wont to be paid to the virtues or sta-progress of their victories. tion of the father; the mutual jealousy of other competitors; the greater envy with which all behold the exaltation of an equal, than the continuance of an acknowledged superiority; a reigning prince leaving behind him many adherents, who can preserve their own importance only by

Lastly, our theory affords a presumption, that the earliest governments were monarchies; because the government of families, and of armies, from which, according to our account, civil government derived its institution, and probably its form, is universally monarchical.

10

CHAPTER II.

of the multitude, but upon prescription? To what else, when the claims are contested, is the appeal

How Subjection to Civil Government is Main-made? It is natural to transfer the same principle

tained.

the sovereign; and to consider obedience to his commands, within certain accustomed limits, as enjoined by that rule of conscience, which requires us to render to every man his due.

to the affairs of government, and to regard those exertions of power which have been long exCOULD we view our own species from a dis-ercised and acquiesced in, as so many rights in tance, or regard mankind with the same sort of observation with which we read the natural history, or remark the manners, of any other animal, there is nothing in the human character which would more surprise us, than the almost In hereditary monarchies, the prescriptive title universal subjugation of strength to weakness; is corroborated, and its influence considerably than to see many millions of robust men, in the augmented by an accession of religious senticomplete use and exercise of their personal facul- ments, and by that sacredness which men are ties, and without any defect of courage, waiting wont to ascribe to the persons of princes. Princes upon the will of a child, a woman, a driveller, or themselves have not failed to take advantage of a lunatic. And although, when we suppose a vast this disposition, by claiming a superior dignity, empire in absolute subjection to one person, and as it were, of nature, or a peculiar delegation from that one depressed beneath the level of his spe- the Supreme Being-For this purpose were incies by infirmities, or vice, we suppose perhaps an troduced the titles of Sacred Majesty, of God's extreme case: yet in all cases, even the most Anointed, Representative, Vicegerent, together popular forms of civil government, the physical with the ceremonies of investitures and coronastrength resides in the governed. In what man- tions, which are calculated not so much to recogner opinion thus prevails over strength, or how nize the authority of sovereigns, as to consecrate power, which naturally belongs to superior force, their persons. Where a fabulous religion peris maintained in opposition to it; in other words, mitted it, the public veneration has been chalby what motives the many are induced to submit lenged by bolder pretensions. The Roman emto the few, becomes an inquiry which lies at the perors usurped the titles and arrogated the worroot of almost every political speculation. It re-ship of gods. The mythology of the heroic moves, indeed, but does not resolve, the difficulty, ages, and of many barbarous nations, was easily. to say, that civil governments are now-a-days al- converted to this purpose. Some princes, like the most universally upholden by standing armies; heroes of Homer, and the founder of the Roman for, the question still returns; How are these ar- name, derived their birth from the gods; others, mies themselves kept in subjection, or made to with Numa, pretended a secret communication obey the commands, and carry on the designs, of with some divine being; and others, again, like the prince or state which employs them? the incas of Peru, and the ancient Saxon kings, extracted their descent from the deities of their countries. The Lama of Thibet, at this day, is held forth to his subjects, not as the offspring or successor of a divine race of princes, but as the immortal God himself, the object at once of civil obedience and religious adoration. This instance is singular, and may be accounted the farthest point to which the abuse of human credulity has ever been carried. But in all these instances the purpose was the same,-to engage the reverence of mankind, by an application to their religious principles.

Now, although we should look in vain for any single reason which will account for the general submission of mankind to civil government; yet it may not be difficult to assign for every class and character in the community, considerations powerful enough to dissuade each from any attempts to resist established authority. Every man has his motive, though not the same. In this, as in other instances, the conduct is similar, but the principles which produce it, extremely various.

There are three distinctions of character, into which the subjects of a state may be divided into those who obey from prejudice; those who obey from reason; and those who obey from self-interest.

II. They who obey from reason, that is to say, from conscience as instructed by reasonings and conclusions of their own, are determined by the consideration of the necessity of some government or other; the certain mischief of civil commotions; and the danger of re-settling the government of their country better, or at all, if once subverted or disturbed.

The reader will be careful to observe that, in this article, we denominate every opinion, whether true or false, a prejudice, which is not foundI. They who obey from prejudice, are deter-ed upon argument, in the mind of the person who mined by an opinion of right in their governors; entertains it. which opinion is founded upon prescription. In monarchies and aristocracies which are hereditary, the prescription operates in favour of particular families; in republics and elective offices, in favour of particular forms of government, or constitution. Nor is it to be wondered at, that mankind should reverence authority founded in prescription, when they observe that it is prescription which confers the title to almost every thing else. The whole course, and all the habits of civil life, favour this prejudice. Upon what other foundation stands any man's right to his estate? The right of primogeniture, the succession of kindred, the descent of property, the inheritance of honours, the demand of tithes, tolls, rents, or services, from the estates of others, the right of way, the powers of office and magistracy, the privileges of nobility, the immunities of the clergy, upon what are they all founded, in the apprehension at least

III. They who obey from self-interest, are kept in order by want of leisure; by a succession of private cares, pleasures, and engagements; by contentment, or a sense of the case, plenty, and safety, which they enjoy; or lastly, and principally, by fear, foreseeing that they would bring themselves by resistance into a worse situation than their present, inasmuch as the strength of government, each discontented subject reflects, is greater than his own, and he knows not that others would join him.

This last consideration has often been called | soldiers more to be dreaded than any other inopinion of power.

This account of the principles by which mankind are retained in their obedience to civil government, may suggest the following cautions.

1. Let civil governors learn hence to respect their subjects; let them be admonished, that the physical strength resides in the governed; that this strength wants only to be felt and roused, to lay prostrate the most ancient and confirmed dominion; that civil authority is founded in opinion; that general opinion therefore ought always to be treated with deference, and managed with delicacy and circumspection.

2. Opinion of right, always following the custom, being for the most part founded in nothing else, and lending one principal support to government, every innovation in the constitution, or in other words, in the custom of governing, diminishes the stability of government. Hence some absurdities are to be retained, and many small inconveniencies endured in every country, rather than that usage should be violated, or the course of public affairs diverted from their old and smooth channel. Even names are not indifferent.

surrection. Hence also one danger of an overgrown metropolis, and of those great cities and crowded districts, into which the inhabitants of trading countries are commonly collected. The worst effect of popular tumults consists in this, that they discover to the insurgents the secret of their own strength, teach them to depend upon it against a future occasion, and both produce and diffuse sentiments of confidence in one another, and assurances of mutual support. Leagues thus formed and strengthened, may overawe or overset the power of any state; and the danger is greater, in proportion as, from the propinquity of habitation and intercourse of employment, the passions and counsels of a party can be circulated with ease and rapidity. It is by these means, and in such situations, that the minds of men are so affected and prepared, that the most dreadful uproars often arise from the slightest provocations. When the train is laid, a spark will produce the explosion.

CHAPTER III.

Explained.

THE subject of this chapter is sufficiently distinguished from the subject of the last, as the motives which actually produce civil obedience, may be and often are, very different from the reasons which make that obedience a duty.

When the multitude are to be dealt with, there is The Duty of Submission to Civil Government a charm in sounds. It was upon this principle, that several statesmen of those times advised Cromwell to assume the title of king, together with the ancient style and insignia of royalty. The minds of many, they contended, would be brought to acquiesce in the authority of a king, who suspected the office, and were offended with the administration, of a protector. Novelty reminded them of usurpation. The adversaries of this design opposed the measure, from the same persuasion of the efficacy of names and forms, jealous lest the veneration paid to these, should add an influence to the new settlement which might ensnare the liberty of the commonwealth.

3. Government may be too secure. The greatest tyrants have been those, whose titles were the most unquestioned. Whenever therefore the opinion of right becomes too predominant and superstitious, it is abated by breaking the custom. Thus the Revolution broke the custom of succession, and thereby moderated, both in the prince and in the people, those lofty notions of hereditary right, which in the one were become a continual incentive to tyranny, and disposed the other to invite servitude, by undue compliances and dangerous concessions.

4. As ignorance of union, and want of communication, appear amongst the principal preservatives of civil authority, it behoves every state to keep its subjects in this want and ignorance, not only by vigilance in guarding against actual confederacies and combinations, but by a timely care to prevent great collections of men of any separate party or religion, or of like ccupation or profession, or in any way connected by a participation of interest or passion, from being assembled in the same vicinity. A protestant establishment in this country may have little to fear from its popish subjects, scattered as they are throughout the kingdom, and intermixed with the protestant inhabitants, which yet might think them a formidable body, if they were gathered together into one county. The most frequent and desperate riots are those which break out amongst men of the same profession, as weavers, miners, sailors. This circumstance makes a mutiny of

In order to prove civil obedience to be a moral duty, and an obligation upon the conscience, it hath been usual with many political writers (at the head of whom we find the venerable name of Locke,) to state a compact between the citizen and the state, as the ground and cause of the relation between them: which compact, binding the parties for the same general reason that private contracts do, resolves the duty of submission to civil government into the universal obligation of fidelity in the performance of promises. This compact is twofold:

First, an express compact by the primitive founders of the state, who are supposed to have convened for the declared purpose of settling the terms of their political union, and a future constitution of government. The whole body is supposed, in the first place, to have unanimously consented to be bound by the resolutions of the majority; that majority, in the next place, to have fixed certain fundamental regulations: and then to have constituted, either in one person, or in an assembly (the rule of succession, or appointment, being at the same time determined,) a standing legislature, to whom, under these pre-established restrictions, the government of the state was thence forward committed, and whose laws the several members of the convention were, by their first undertaking, thus personally engaged to obey.-This transaction is sometimes called the social compact, and these supposed original regulations compose what are meant by the constitution, the fundamental laws of the constitution; and form, on one side, the inherent indefeasible prerogative of the crown; and, on the other, the unalienable, imprescriptible birth-right of the subject.

Secondly, A tacit or implied compact, by all succeeding members of the state, who by accept

ing its protection, consent to be bound by its laws; | the disciples of this system speak of the constituin like manner, as whoever voluntarily enters into tion; of the fundamental articles of the constitua private society is understood, without any other tion; of laws being constitutional or unconstior more explicit stipulation, to promise a con- tutional; of inherent, unalienable, inextinguishable formity with the rules, and obedience to the go- rights, either in the prince or in the people; or invernment of that society, as the known conditions deed of any laws, usages, or civil rights, as transupon which he is admitted to a participation of its cending the authority of the subsisting legislature, privileges. or possessing a force and sanction superior to what belong to the modern acts and edicts of the legislature; they secretly refer us to what passed at the original convention. They would teach us to believe, that certain rules and ordinances were established by the people, at the same time that they settled the charter of government, and the powers as well as the form of the future legislature; that this legislature consequently, deriving its commission and existence from the consent and act of the primitive assembly (of which indeed it is only the standing deputation,) continues subject, in the ex

This account of the subject, although specious, and patronized by names the most respectable, appears to labour under the following objections: that it is founded upon a supposition false in fact, and leading to dangerous conclusions.

to the rules, reservations, and limitations, which the same assembly then made and prescribed to it.

No social compact, similar to what is here described, was ever made or entered into in reality: no such original convention of the people was ever actually holden, or in any country could be holden, antecedent to the existence of civil government in that country. It is to suppose it possible to call savages out of caves and deserts, to de-ercise of its offices, and as to the extent of its power, liberate and vote upon topics, which the experience, and studies, and refinements, of civil life, alone suggest. Therefore no government in the "As the first members of the state were bound universe began from this original. Some imita- by express stipulation to obey the government tion of a social compact may have taken place at a which they had erected; so the succeeding inrevolution. The present age has been witness to habitants of the country are understood to promise a transaction, which bears the nearest resemblance allegiance to the constitution and government they to this political idea, of any of which history has find established, by accepting its protection, claimpreserved the account or memory: I refer to the ing its privileges, and acquiescing in its laws; more establishment of the United States of North especially, by the purchase or inheritance of lands America. We saw the people assembled to elect to the possession of which, allegiance to the state deputies, for the avowed purpose of framing the is annexed, as the very service and condition of constitution of a new empire. We saw this the tenure:" Smoothly as this train of argument deputation of the people deliberating and re- proceeds, little of it will endure examination. The solving upon a form of government, erecting a native subjects of modern states are not conscious permanent legislature, distributing the functions of any stipulation with the sovereigns, of ever ex-of sovereignty, establishing and promulgating a ercising an election whether they will be bound or code of fundamental ordinances, which were to not by the acts of the legislature, of any alternabe considered by succeeding generations, not tive being proposed to their choice, of a promise merely as laws and acts of the state, but as the either required or given; nor do they apprehend very terms and conditions of the confederation; as that the validity or authority of the law depends binding not only upon the subjects and magis- at all upon their recognition or consent. In all trates of the state, but as limitations of power, stipulations, whether they be expressed or implied, which were to control and regulate the future private or public, formal or constructive, the parlegislature. Yet even here much was presupposed.ties stipulating must both possess the liberty In settling the constitution, many important parts were presumed to be already settled. The qualifications of the constituents who were admitted to vote in the election of members of congress, as well as the mode of electing the representatives, were taken from the old forms of government. That was wanting, from which every social union should set off, and which alone makes the resolutions of the society the act of the individual,-the unconstrained consent of all to be bound by the decision of the majority; and yet without this previous consent, the revolt, and the regulations which followed it, were compulsory upon dissentients.

of assent and refusal, and also be conscious of this liberty; which cannot with truth be affirmed of the subjects of civil government as government is now, or ever was, actually administered. This is a defect, which no arguments can excuse or supply: ail presumptions of consent, without this consciousness, or in opposition to it, are vain and erroneous. Still less is it possible to reconcile with any idea of stipulation, the practice, in which all European nations agree, of founding allegiance upon the circumstance of nativity, that is, of claiming and treating as subjects all those who are born within the confines of their dominions, although removed to another country in their youth or infancy. In this instance certainly, the state does not presume a compact. Also if the subject be bound only by his own consent, and if the voluntary abiding in the country be the proof and intimation of that consent, by what arguments should we defend the right, which sovereigns universally assume, of prohibiting, when they please, the departure of their subjects out of the realm ?

But the original compact, we are told, is not proposed as a fact, but as a fiction, which furnishes a commodious explication of the mutual rights and duties of sovereigns and subjects. In answer to this representation of the matter, we observe, that the original compact, if it be not a fact, is nothing; can confer no actual authority upon laws or magistrates; nor afford any foundation to rights which are supposed to be real and existing. But Again, when it is contended that the taking and the truth is, that in the books, and in the appre-holding possession of land amounts to an acknowhension, of those who deduce our civil rights and ledgment of the sovereign, and a virtual promise obligations a pactis, the original convention is ap- of allegiance to his laws, it is necessary to the vapealed to and treated of as a reality. Whenever lidity of the argument to prove, that the inhabitants