1.The first object which our Author seems to have proposed to himself in the dissertation we are about to examine,is to give us an idea of the manner in which Governments were formed.This occupies the first paragraph,together with part of the second:for the typographical division does not seem to quadrate very exactly with the intellectual.As the examination of this passage will unavoidably turn in great measure upon the words,it will be proper the reader should have it under his eye.
2.`The only true and natural foundations of society,'(says our Author)(33)`are the wants and the fears of individuals.Not that we can believe,with some theoretical writers,that there ever was a time when there was no such thing as society;and that,from the impulse of reason,and through a sense of their wants and weaknesses,individu als met together in a large plain,entered into an original contract,and chose the tallest man present to be their governor.This notion of an actually existing unconnected state of nature,is too wild to be seriously admitted;and besides,it is plainly contradictory to the revealed accounts of the primitive origin of mankind,and their preservation two thousand years afterwards;both which were effected by the means of single families.These formed the first society,among themselves;which every day extended its limits,and when it grew too large to subsist with convenience in that pastoral state,wherein the Patriarchs appear to have lived,it necessarily subdivided itself by various migrations into more.Afterwards,as agriculture increased,which employs and can maintain a much greater number of hands,migrations became less frequent;and various tribes which had formerly separated,re-united again;sometimes by compulsion and conquest,sometimes by accident,and sometimes perhaps by com pact.But though society had not its formal beginning from any convention of individuals,actuated by their wants and their fears;yet it is the sense of their weakness and imperfection that keeps mankind together;that demonstrates the necessity of this union;and that therefore is the solid and natural foundation,as well as the cement of society:And this is what we mean by the original contract of society;which,though perhaps in no instance it has ever been formally expressed at the first institution of a state,yet in nature and reason must always be understood and implied,in the very act of associating together:namely,that the whole should protect all its parts,and that every part should pay obedience to the will of the whole;or,in other words,that the community should guard the rights of each individual member,and that (in return for this protection)each individual should submit to the laws of the community;without which submis sion of all it was impossible that protection could be certainly extended to any.