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.
`For when society is once formed,government results of course,as necessary to preserve and to keep that society in order.Unless some superior were constituted,whose commands and decisions all the members are bound to obey,they would still remain as in a state of nature,without any judge upon earth to define their several rights,and redress their several wrongs.'Thus far our Author.
3.When leading terms are made to chop and change their several significations;sometimes meaning one thing,sometimes another,at the upshot perhaps nothing;and this in the compass of a paragraph;one may judge what will be the complexion of the whole context.This,we shall see,is the case with the chief of those we have been reading:for instance,with the words `Society','State of nature',original contract',not to tire the reader with any more.`Society',in one place means the same thing as `a state of nature'does:in another place it means the same as `Government'.Here,we are required to believe there never was such a state as a state of nature:there we are given to understand there has been.In like manner with respect to an original contract we are given to understand that such a thing never existed;that the notion of it is ridiculous:at the same time that there is no speaking nor stirring without supposing there was one.
4.1st,Society means a state of nature.For if by `a state of nature'
a man means any thing,it is the state,I take it,men are in or supposed to be in,before they are under government:the state men quit when they enter into a state of government;and in which were it not for government they would remain.But by the word `society'it is plain at one time that he means that state.First,according to him,comes society;then afterwards comes government.`For when society',says our Author,`is once formed,government results of course;as necessary to preserve and keep that society in order.'(34)And again,immediately afterwards,'Astate in which a superior has been constituted,whose commands and decisions all the members are bound to obey',he puts as an explanation (nor is it an inapt one)of a state of `government':and `unless'men were in a state of that description,they would still remain',he says,`as in a state of nature'.By society,therefore,he means,once more,the same as by a `state of nature':he opposes it to government.And he speaks of it as a state which,in this sense,has actually existed.
