This will naturally lead us into a ſhort enquiry concerning the nature of ſociety and civil government; and the natural, inherent right that belongs to the ſovereignty of a ſtate, wherever that ſovereignty be lodged, of making and enforcing laws.
The only true and natural foundations of ſociety 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, individuals 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 it’s 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, reunited again; ſometimes by compulſion and conqueſt, ſometimes by accident, and ſometimes perhaps by compact. But though ſociety had not it’s 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,
