CHAP. VIII.

Of the Beginning of Political Societies.

Sec. 95. MEN being, as has been said, by nature, all free,
equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and
subjected to the political power of another, without his own
consent. The only way whereby any one divests himself of his
natural liberty, and puts on the bonds of civil society, is by
agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community for
their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst
another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater
security against any, that are not of it. This any number of men
may do, because it injures not the freedom of the rest; they are
left as they were in the liberty of the state of nature. When
any number of men have so consented to make one community or
government, they are thereby presently incorporated, and make one
body politic, wherein the majority have a right to act and
conclude the rest.
Sec. 96. For when any number of men have, by the consent of
every individual, made a community, they have thereby made that
community one body, with a power to act as one body, which is
only by the will and determination of the majority: for that
which acts any community, being only the consent of the
individuals of it, and it being necessary to that which is one
body to move one way; it is necessary the body should move that
way whither the greater force carries it, which is the consent of
the majority: or else it is impossible it should act or continue
one body, one community, which the consent of every individual
that united into it, agreed that it should; and so every one is
bound by that consent to be concluded by the majority. And
therefore we see, that in assemblies, impowered to act by
positive laws, where no number is set by that positive law which
impowers them, the act of the majority passes for the act of the
whole, and of course determines, as having, by the law of nature
and reason, the power of the whole.
Sec. 97. And thus every man, by consenting with others to
make one body politic under one government, puts himself under an
obligation, to every one of that society, to submit to the
determination of the majority, and to be concluded by it; or else
this original compact, whereby he with others incorporates into
one society, would signify nothing, and be no compact, if he be
left free, and under no other ties than he was in before in the
state of nature. For what appearance would there be of any
compact? what new engagement if he were no farther tied by any
decrees of the society, than he himself thought fit, and did
actually consent to? This would be still as great a liberty, as
he himself had before his compact, or any one else in the state
of nature hath, who may submit himself, and consent to any acts
of it if he thinks fit.
Sec. 98. For if the consent of the majority shall not, in
reason, be received as the act of the whole, and conclude every
individual; nothing but the consent of every individual can make
any thing to be the act of the whole: but such a consent is next
to impossible ever to be had, if we consider the infirmities of
health, and avocations of business, which in a number, though
much less than that of a common-wealth, will necessarily keep
many away from the public assembly. To which if we add the
variety of opinions, and contrariety of interests, which
unavoidably happen in all collections of men, the coming into
society upon such terms would be only like Cato's coming into the
theatre, only to go out again. Such a constitution as this would
make the mighty Leviathan of a shorter duration, than the
feeblest creatures, and not let it outlast the day it was bom in:
which cannot be supposed, till we can think, that rational
creatures should desire and constitute societies only to be
dissolved: for where the majority cannot conclude the rest, there
they cannot act as one body, and consequently will be immediately
dissolved again.
Sec. 99. Whosoever therefore out of a state of nature unite
into a community, must be understood to give up all the power,
necessary to the ends for which they unite into society, to the
majority of the community, unless they expresly agreed in any
number greater than the majority. And this is done by barely
agreeing to unite into one political society, which is all the
compact that is, or needs be, between the individuals, that enter
into, or make up a commonwealth. And thus that, which begins and
actually constitutes any political society, is nothing but the
consent of any number of freemen capable of a majority to unite
and incorporate into such a society. And this is that, and that
only, which did, or could give beginning to any lawful government
in the world.
Sec. 100. To this I find two objections made.
First, That there are no instances to be found in story, of
a company of men independent, and equal one amongst another, that
met together, and in this way began and set up a government.
Secondly, It is impossible of right, that men should do so,
because all men being born under government, they are to submit
to that, and are not at liberty to begin a new one.
Sec. 101. To the first there is this to answer, That it is
not at all to be wondered, that history gives us but a very
little account of men, that lived together in the state of
nature. The inconveniences of that condition, and the love and
want of society, no sooner brought any number of them together,
but they presently united and incorporated, if they designed to
continue together. And if we may not suppose men ever to have
been in the state of nature, because we hear not much of them in
such a state, we may as well suppose the armies of Salmanasser or
Xerxes were never children, because we hear little of them, till
they were men, and imbodied in armies. Government is every where
antecedent to records, and letters seldom come in amongst a
people till a long continuation of civil society has, by other
more necessary arts, provided for their safety, ease, and plenty:
and then they begin to look after the history of their founders,
and search into their original, when they have outlived the
memory of it: for it is with commonwealths as with particular
persons, they are commonly ignorant of their own births and
infancies: and if they know any thing of their original, they are
beholden for it, to the accidental records that others have kept
of it. And those that we have, of the beginning of any polities
in the world, excepting that of the Jews, where God himself
immediately interposed, and which favours not at all paternal
dominion, are all either plain instances of such a beginning as I
have mentioned, or at least have manifest footsteps of it.
Sec. 102. He must shew a strange inclination to deny
evident matter of fact, when it agrees not with his hypothesis,
who will not allow, that shew a strange inclination to deny
evident matter of fact, when it agrees not with his hypothesis,
who will not allow, that the beginning of Rome and Venice were by
the uniting together of several men free and independent one of
another, amongst whom there was no natural superiority or
subjection. And if Josephus Acosta's word may be taken, he tells
us, that in many parts of America there was no government at all.
There are great and apparent conjectures, says he, that these
men, speaking of those of Peru, for a long time had neither kings
nor commonwealths, but lived in troops, as they do this day in
Florida, the Cheriquanas, those of Brazil, and many other
nations, which have no certain kings, but as occasion is offered,
in peace or war, they choose their captains as they please, 1.
i. c. 25. If it be said, that every man there was born subject
to his father, or the head of his family; that the subjection due
from a child to a father took not away his freedom of uniting
into what political society he thought fit, has been already
proved. But be that as it will, these men, it is evident, were
actually free; and whatever superiority some politicians now
would place in any of them, they themselves claimed it not, but
by consent were all equal, till by the same consent they set
rulers over themselves. So that their politic societies all
began from a voluntary union, and the mutual agreement of men
freely acting in the choice of their governors, and forms of
government.
Sec. 103. And I hope those who went away from Sparta with
Palantus, mentioned by Justin, 1. iii. c. 4. will be allowed to
have been freemen independent one of another, and to have set up
a government over themselves, by their own consent. Thus I have
given several examples, out of history, of people free and in the
state of nature, that being met together incorporated and began a
commonwealth. And if the want of such instances be an argument
to prove that government were not, nor could not be so begun, I
suppose the contenders for paternal empire were better let it
alone, than urge it against natural liberty: for if they can give
so many instances, out of history, of governments begun upon
paternal right, I think (though at best an argument from what has
been, to what should of right be, has no great force) one might,
without any great danger, yield them the cause. But if I might
advise them in the case, they would do well not to search too
much into the original of governments, as they have begun de
facto, lest they should find, at the foundation of most of them,
something very little favourable to the design they promote, and
such a power as they contend for.
Sec. 104. But to conclude, reason being plain on our side,
that men are naturally free, and the examples of history shewing,
that the governments of the world, that were begun in peace, had
their beginning laid on that foundation, and were made by the
consent of the people; there can be little room for doubt, either
where the right is, or what has been the opinion, or practice of
mankind, about the first erecting of governments.
Sec. 105. I will not deny, that if we look back as far as
history will direct us, towards the original of commonwealths, we
shall generally find them under the government and administration
of one man. And I am also apt to believe, that where a family
was numerous enough to subsist by itself, and continued entire
together, without mixing with others, as it often happens, where
there is much land, and few people, the government commonly began
in the father: for the father having, by the law of nature, the
same power with every man else to punish, as he thought fit, any
offences against that law, might thereby punish his transgressing
children, even when they were men, and out of their pupilage; and
they were very likely to submit to his punishment, and all join
with him against the offender, in their turns, giving him thereby

power to execute his sentence against any transgression, and so
in effect make him the law-maker, and governor over all that
remained in conjunction with his family. He was fittest to be
trusted; paternal affection secured their property and interest
under his care; and the custom of obeying him, in their
childhood, made it easier to submit to him, rather than to any
other. If therefore they must have one to rule them, as
government is hardly to be avoided amongst men that live
together; who so likely to be the man as he that was their common
father; unless negligence, cruelty, or any other defect of mind
or body made him unfit for it? But when either the father died,
and left his next heir, for want of age, wisdom, courage, or any
other qualities, less fit for rule; or where several families
met, and consented to continue together; there, it is not to be
doubted, but they used their natural freedom, to set up him, whom
they judged the ablest, and most likely, to rule well over them.
Conformable hereunto we find the people of America, who (living
out of the reach of the conquering swords, and spreading
domination of the two great empires of Peru and Mexico) enjoyed
their own natural freedom, though, caeteris paribus, they
commonly prefer the heir of their deceased king; yet if they find
him any way weak, or uncapable, they pass him by, and set up the
stoutest and bravest man for their ruler.
Sec. 106. Thus, though looking back as far as records give
us any account of peopling the world, and the history of nations,
we commonly find the government to be in one hand; yet it
destroys not that which I affirm, viz. that the beginning of
politic society depends upon the consent of the individuals, to
join into, and make one society; who, when they are thus
incorporated, might set up what form of government they thought
fit. But this having given occasion to men to mistake, and
think, that by nature government was monarchical, and belonged to
the father, it may not be amiss here to consider, why people in
the beginning generally pitched upon this form, which though
perhaps the father's pre-eminency might, in the first institution
of some commonwealths, give a rise to, and place in the
beginning, the power in one hand; yet it is plain that the
reason, that continued the form of government in a single person,
was not any regard, or respect to paternal authority; since all
petty monarchies, that is, almost all monarchies, near their
original, have been commonly, at least upon occasion, elective.
Sec. 107. First then, in the beginning of things, the
father's government of the childhood of those sprung from him,
having accustomed them to the rule of one man, and taught them
that where it was exercised with care and skill, with affection
and love to those under it, it was sufficient to procure and
preserve to men all the political happiness they sought for in
society. It was no wonder that they should pitch upon, and
naturally run into that form of government, which from their
infancy they had been all accustomed to; and which, by
experience, they had found both easy and safe. To which, if we
add, that monarchy being simple, and most obvious to men, whom
neither experience had instructed in forms of government, nor the
ambition or insolence of empire had taught to beware of the
encroachments of prerogative, or the inconveniences of absolute
power, which monarchy in succession was apt to lay claim to, and
bring upon them, it was not at all strange, that they should not
much trouble themselves to think of methods of restraining any
exorbitances of those to whom they had given the authority over
them, and of balancing the power of government, by placing
several parts of it in different hands. They had neither felt
the oppression of tyrannical dominion, nor did the fashion of the
age, nor their possessions, or way of living, (which afforded
little matter for covetousness or ambition) give them any reason
to apprehend or provide against it; and therefore it is no wonder
they put themselves into such a frame of government, as was not
only, as I said, most obvious and simple, but also best suited to
their present state and condition; which stood more in need of
defence against foreign invasions and injuries, than of
multiplicity of laws. The equality of a simple poor way of
living, confining their desires within the narrow bounds of each
man's small property, made few controversies, and so no need of
many laws to decide them, or variety of officers to superintend
the process, or look after the execution of justice, where there
were but few trespasses, and few offenders. Since then those,
who like one another so well as to join into society, cannot but
be supposed to have some acquaintance and friendship together,
and some trust one in another; they could not but have greater
apprehensions of others, than of one another: and therefore their
first care and thought cannot but be supposed to be, how to
secure themselves against foreign force. It was natural for them
to put themselves under a frame of government which might best
serve to that end, and chuse the wisest and bravest man to
conduct them in their wars, and lead them out against their
enemies, and in this chiefly be their ruler.
Sec. 108. Thus we see, that the kings of the Indians in
America, which is still a pattern of the first ages in Asia and
Europe, whilst the inhabitants were too few for the country, and
want of people and money gave men no temptation to enlarge their
possessions of land, or contest for wider extent of ground, are
little more than generals of their armies; and though they
command absolutely in war, yet at home and in time of peace they
exercise very little dominion, and have but a very moderate
sovereignty, the resolutions of peace and war being ordinarily
either in the people, or in a council. Tho' the war itself,
which admits not of plurality of governors, naturally devolves
the command into the king's sole authority.
Sec. 109. And thus in Israel itself, the chief business of
their judges, and first kings, seems to have been to be captains
in war, and leaders of their armies; which (besides what is
signified by going out and in before the people, which was, to
march forth to war, and home again in the heads of their forces)
appears plainly in the story of lephtha. The Ammonites making
war upon Israel, the Gileadites in fear send to lephtha, a
bastard of their family whom they had cast off, and article with
him, if he will assist them against the Ammonites, to make him
their ruler; which they do in these words, And the people made
him head and captain over them, Judg. xi, ii. which was, as it
seems, all one as to be judge. And he judged Israel, judg. xii.
7. that is, was their captain-general six years. So when lotham
upbraids the Shechemites with the obligation they had to Gideon,
who had been their judge and ruler, he tells them, He fought for
you, and adventured his life far, and delivered you out of the
hands of Midian, Judg. ix. 17. Nothing mentioned of him but
what he did as a general: and indeed that is all is found in his
history, or in any of the rest of the judges. And Abimelech
particularly is called king, though at most he was but their
general. And when, being weary of the ill conduct of Samuel's
sons, the children of Israel desired a king, like all the nations
to judge them, and to go out before them, and to fight their
battles, I. Sam viii. 20. God granting their desire, says to
Samuel, I will send thee a man, and thou shalt anoint him to be
captain over my people Israel, that he may save my people out of
the hands of the Philistines, ix. 16. As if the only business
of a king had been to lead out their armies, and fight in their
defence; and accordingly at his inauguration pouring a vial of
oil upon him, declares to Saul, that the Lord had anointed him to
be captain over his inheritance, x. 1. And therefore those, who
after Saul's being solemnly chosen and saluted king by the tribes
at Mispah, were unwilling to have him their king, made no other
objection but this, How shall this man save us? v. 27. as if
they should have said, this man is unfit to be our king, not
having skill and conduct enough in war, to be able to defend us.
And when God resolved to transfer the government to David, it is
in these words, But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the Lord
hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the Lord hath
commanded him to be captain over his people, xiii. 14. As if
the whole kingly authority were nothing else but to be their
general: and therefore the tribes who had stuck to Saul's family,
and opposed David's reign, when they came to Hebron with terms of
submission to him, they tell him, amongst other arguments they
had to submit to him as to their king, that he was in effect
their king in Saul's time, and therefore they had no reason but
to receive him as their king now. Also (say they) in time past,
when Saul was king over us, thou wast he that reddest out and
broughtest in Israel, and the Lord said unto thee, Thou shalt
feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be a captain over Israel.
Sec. 110. Thus, whether a family by degrees grew up into a
common-wealth, and the fatherly authority being continued on to
the elder son, every one in his turn growing up under it, tacitly
submitted to it, and the easiness and equality of it not
offending any one, every one acquiesced, till time seemed to have
confirmed it, and settled a right of succession by prescription:
or whether several families, or the descendants of several
families, whom chance, neighbourhood, or business brought
together, uniting into society, the need of a general, whose
conduct might defend them against their enemies in war, and the
great confidence the innocence and sincerity of that poor but
virtuous age, (such as are almost all those which begin
governments, that ever come to last in the world) gave men one of
another, made the first beginners of commonwealths generally put
the rule into one man's hand, without any other express
limitation or restraint, but what the nature of the thing, and
the end of government required: which ever of those it was that
at first put the rule into the hands of a single person, certain
it is no body was intrusted with it but for the public good and
safety, and to those ends, in the infancies of commonwealths,
those who had it commonly used it. And unless they had done so,
young societies could not have subsisted; without such nursing
fathers tender and careful of the public weal, all governments
would have sunk under the weakness and infirmities of their
infancy, and the prince and the people had soon perished
together.
Sec. 111. But though the golden age (before vain ambition,
and amor sceleratus habendi, evil concupiscence, had corrupted
men's minds into a mistake of true power and honour) had more
virtue, and consequently better governors, as well as less
vicious subjects, and there was then no stretching prerogative on
the one side, to oppress the people; nor consequently on the
other, any dispute about privilege, to lessen or restrain the
power of the magistrate, and so no contest betwixt rulers and
people about governors or goveernment: yet, when ambition and
luxury in future ages* would retain and increase the power,
without doing the business for which it was given; and aided by
flattery, taught princes to have distinct and separate interests
from their people, men found it necessary to examine more
carefully the original and rights of government; and to find out
ways to restrain the exorbitances, and prevent the abuses of that
power, which they having intrusted in another's hands only for
their own good, they found was made use of to hurt them.
(*At first, when some certain kind of regiment was once
approved, it may be nothing was then farther thought upon for the
manner of governing, but all permitted unto their wisdom and
discretion which were to rule, till by experience they found this
for all parts very inconvenient, so as the thing which they had
devised for a remedy, did indeed but increase the sore which it
should have cured. They saw, that to live by one man's will,
became the cause of all men's misery. This constrained them to
come unto laws wherein all men might see their duty before hand,
and know the penalties of transgressing them. Hooker's Eccl.
Pol. l. i. sect. 10.)
Sec. 112. Thus we may see how probable it is, that people
that were naturally free, and by their own consent either
submitted to the government of their father, or united together
out of different families to make a government, should generally
put the rule into one man's hands, and chuse to be under the
conduct of a single person, without so much as by express
conditions limiting or regulating his power, which they thought
safe enough in his honesty and prudence; though they never
dreamed of monarchy being lure Divino, which we never heard of
among mankind, till it was revealed to us by the divinity of this
last age; nor ever allowed paternal power to have a right to
dominion, or to be the foundation of all government. And thus
much may suffice to shew, that as far as we have any light from
history, we have reason to conclude, that all peaceful beginnings
of government have been laid in the consent of the people. I say
peaceful, because I shall have occasion in another place to speak
of conquest, which some esteem a way of beginning of governments.
The other objection I find urged against the beginning of
polities, in the way I have mentioned, is this, viz.
Sec. 113. That all men being born under government, some or
other, it is impossible any of them should ever be free, and at
liberty to unite together, and begin a new one, or ever be able
to erect a lawful government.
If this argument be good; I ask, how came so many lawful
monarchies into the world? for if any body, upon this
supposition, can shew me any one man in any age of the world free
to begin a lawful monarchy, I will be bound to shew him ten other
free men at liberty, at the same time to unite and begin a new
government under a regal, or any other form; it being
demonstration, that if any one, born under the dominion of
another, may be so free as to have a right to command others in a
new and distinct empire, every one that is born under the
dominion of another may be so free too, and may become a ruler,
or subject, of a distinct separate government. And so by this
their own principle, either all men, however born, are free, or
else there is but one lawful prince, one lawful government in the
world. And then they have nothing to do, but barely to shew us
which that is; which when they have done, I doubt not but all
mankind will easily agree to pay obedience to him.
Sec. 114. Though it be a sufficient answer to their
objection, to shew that it involves them in the same difficulties
that it doth those they use it against; yet I shall endeavour to
discover the weakness of this argument a little farther. All
men, say they, are born under government, and therefore they
cannot be at liberty to begin a new one. Every one is born a
subject to his father, or his prince, and is therefore under the
perpetual tie of subjection and allegiance. It is plain mankind
never owned nor considered any such natural subjection that they
were born in, to one or to the other that tied them, without
their own consents, to a subjection to them and their heirs.
Sec. 115. For there are no examples so frequent in history,
both sacred and profane, as those of men withdrawing themselves,
and their obedience, from the jurisdiction they were born under,
and the family or community they were bred up in, and setting up
new governments in other places; from whence sprang all that
number of petty commonwealths in the beginning of ages, and which
always multiplied, as long as there was room enough, till the
stronger, or more fortunate, swallowed the weaker; and those
great ones again breaking to pieces, dissolved into lesser
dominions. All which are so many testimonies against paternal
sovereignty, and plainly prove, that it was not the natural right
of the father descending to his heirs, that made governments in
the beginning, since it was impossible, upon that ground, there

should have been so many little kingdoms; all must have been but
only one universal monarchy, if men had not been at liberty to
separate themselves from their families, and the government, be
it what it will, that was set up in it, and go and make distinct
commonwealths and other governments, as they thought fit.
Sec. 116. This has been the practice of the world from its
first beginning to this day; nor is it now any more hindrance to
the freedom of mankind, that they are born under constituted and
ancient polities, that have established laws, and set forms of
government, than if they were born in the woods, amongst the
unconfined inhabitants, that run loose in them: for those, who
would persuade us, that by being born under any government, we
are naturally subjects to it, and have no more any title or
pretence to the freedom of the state of nature, have no other
reason (bating that of paternal power, which we have already
answered) to produce for it, but only, because our fathers or
progenitors passed away their natural liberty, and thereby bound
up themselves and their posterity to a perpetual subjection to
the government, which they themselves submitted to. It is true,
that whatever engagements or promises any one has made for
himself, he is under the obligation of them, but cannot, by any
compact whatsoever, bind his children or posterity: for his son,
when a man, being altogether as free as the father, any act of
the father can no more give away the liberty of the son, than it
can of any body else: he may indeed annex such conditions to the
land, he enjoyed as a subject of any common-wealth, as may oblige
his son to be of that community, if he will enjoy those
possessions which were his father's; because that estate being
his father's property, he may dispose, or settle it, as he
pleases.
Sec. 117. And this has generally given the occasion to
mistake in this matter; because commonwealths not permitting any
part of their dominions to be dismembered, nor to be enjoyed by
any but those of their community, the son cannot ordinarily enjoy
the possessions of his father, but under the same terms his
father did, by becoming a member of the society; whereby he puts
himself presently under the government he finds there
established, as much as any other subject of that common-wealth.
And thus the consent of freemen, born under government, which
only makes them members of it, being given separately in their
turns, as each comes to be of age, and not in a multitude
together; people take no notice of it, and thinking it not done
at all, or not necessary, conclude they are naturally subjects as
they are men.
Sec. 118. But, it is plain, governments themselves
understand it otherwise; they claim no power over the son,
because of that they had over the father; nor look on children as
being their subjects, by their fathers being so. If a subject of
England have a child, by an English woman in France, whose
subject is he? Not the king of England's; for he must have leave
to be admitted to the privileges of it: nor the king of France's;
for how then has his father a liberty to bring him away, and
breed him as he pleases? and who ever was judged as a traytor or
deserter, if he left, or warred against a country, for being
barely born in it of parents that were aliens there? It is plain
then, by the practice of governments themselves, as well as by
the law of right reason, that a child is born a subject of no
country or government. He is under his father's tuition and
authority, till he comes to age of discretion; and then he is a
freeman, at liberty what government he will put himself under,
what body politic he will unite himself to: for if an
Englishman's son, born in France, be at liberty, and may do so,
it is evident there is no tie upon him by his father's being a
subject of this kingdom; nor is he bound up by any compact of his
ancestors. And why then hath not his son, by the same reason,
the same liberty, though he be born any where else? Since the
power that a father hath naturally over his children, is the
same, where-ever they be born, and the ties of natural
obligations, are not bounded by the positive limits of kingdoms
and commonwealths.
Sec. 119. Every man being, as has been shewed, naturally
free, and nothing being able to put him into subjection to any
earthly power, but only his own consent; it is to be considered,
what shall be understood to be a sufficient declaration of a
man's consent, to make him subject to the laws of any government.
There is a common distinction of an express and a tacit consent,
which will concern our present case. No body doubts but an
express consent, of any man entering into any society, makes him
a perfect member of that society, a subject of that government.
The difficulty is, what ought to be looked upon as a tacit
consent, and how far it binds, i.e. how far any one shall be
looked on to have consented, and thereby submitted to any
government, where he has made no expressions of it at all. And
to this I say, that every man, that hath any possessions, or
enjoyment, of any part of the dominions of any government, cloth
thereby give his tacit consent, and is as far forth obliged to
obedience to the laws of that government, during such enjoyment,
as any one under it; whether this his possession be of land, to
him and his heirs for ever, or a lodging only for a week; or
whether it be barely travelling freely on the highway; and in
effect, it reaches as far as the very being of any one within the
territories of that government.
Sec. 120. To understand this the better, it is fit to
consider, that every man, when he at first incorporates himself
into any commonwealth, he, by his uniting himself thereunto,
annexed also, and submits to the community, those possessions,
which he has, or shall acquire, that do not already belong to any
other government: for it would be a direct contradiction, for any
one to enter into society with others for the securing and
regulating of property; and yet to suppose his land, whose
property is to be regulated by the laws of the society, should be
exempt from the jurisdiction of that government, to which he
himself, the proprietor of the land, is a subject. By the same
act therefore, whereby any one unites his person, which was
before free, to any common-wealth, by the same he unites his
possessions, which were before free, to it also; and they become,
both of them, person and possession, subject to the government
and dominion of that common-wealth, as long as it hath a being.
VVhoever therefore, from thenceforth, by inheritance, purchase,
permission, or otherways, enjoys any part of the land, so annexed
to, and under the government of that common-wealth, must take it
with the condition it is under; that is, of submitting to the
government of the common-wealth, under whose jurisdiction it is,
as far forth as any subject of it.
Sec. 121. But since the government has a direct
jurisdiction only over the land, and reaches the possessor of it,
(before he has actually incorporated himself in the society) only
as he dwells upon, and enjoys that; the obligation any one is
under, by virtue of such enjoyment, to submit to the government,
begins and ends with the enjoyment; so that whenever the owner,
who has given nothing but such a tacit consent to the government,
will, by donation, sale, or otherwise, quit the said possession,
he is at liberty to go and incorporate himself into any other
common-wealth; or to agree with others to begin a new one, in
vacuis locis, in any part of the world, they can find free and
unpossessed: whereas he, that has once, by actual agreement, and
any express declaration, given his consent to be of any common-
wealth, is perpetually and indispensably obliged to be, and
remain unalterably a subject to it, and can never be again in the
liberty of the state of nature; unless, by any calamity, the
government he was under comes to be dissolved; or else by some
public act cuts him off from being any longer a member of it.
Sec. 122. But submitting to the laws of any country, living
quietly, and enjoying privileges and protection under them, makes
not a man a member of that society: this is only a local
protection and homage due to and from all those, who, not being
in a state of war, come within the territories belonging to any
government, to all parts whereof the force of its laws extends.
But this no more makes a man a member of that society, a
perpetual subject of that common-wealth, than it would make a man
a subject to another, in whose family he found it convenient to
abide for some time; though, whilst he continued in it, he were
obliged to comply with the laws, and submit to the government he
found there. And thus we see, that foreigners, by living all
their lives under another government, and enjoying the privileges
and protection of it, though they are bound, even in conscience,
to submit to its administration, as far forth as any denison; yet
do not thereby come to be subjects or members of that common-
wealth. Nothing can make any man so, but his actually entering
into it by positive engagement, and express promise and compact.
This is that, which I think, concerning the beginning of
political societies, and that consent which makes any one a
member of any common-wealth.