solemnity of those interests, concerning which of our common nature are not altered or excluded Revelation professes to inform and direct us, may by distinctions of name, and that the characters of teach even those who are least inclined to respect men are formed much more by the temptations the prejudicies of mankind, to observe a decorum than the duties of their profession? A third finds in the style and conduct of religious disquisitions, delight in collecting and repeating accounts of wars with the neglect of which many adversaries of and massacres, of tumults and insurrections, exciChristianity are justly chargeable. Serious ar-ted in almost every age of the Christian æra by religuments are fair on all sides. Christianity is but gious zeal; as though the vices of Christians were ill detended by refusing audience or toleration to parts of Christianity; intolerance and extirpation the objections of unbelievers. But whilst we precepts of the Gospel; or as if its spirit could be would have freedom of inquiry restrained by no judged of from the counsels of princes, the inlaws but those of decency, we are entitled to de-trigues of statesmen, the pretences of malice and mind, on behalf of a religion which holds forth ambition, or the unauthorised cruelties of some to mankind assurances of immortality, that its gloomy and virulent superstition. By a fourth, credit be assailed by no other weapons than those the succession and variety of popular religions; of sober discussion and legitimate reasoning:-that the vicissitudes with which sects and tenets have the truth or falsehood of Christianity be never flourished and decayed; the zeal with which they made a topic of raillery, a theme for the exercise of were once supported, the negligence with which wit or eloquence, or a subject of contention for they are now remembered; the little share which literary fame and victory :—that the cause be tried reason and argument appear to have had in framupon its merits-that all applications to the fancy, ing the creed, or regulating the religious conduct, passions, or prejudices of the reader, all attempts of the multitude; the indifference and submission to pre-occupy, ensnare, or perplex his judgment, with which the religion of the state is generally by any art, influence, or impression whatsoever, received by the common people; the caprice and extrinsic to the proper grounds and evidence upon vehemence with which it is sometimes opposed; which his assent ought to proceed, be rejected the phrensy with which men have been brought from a question which involves in its determination to contend for opinions and ceremonies, of which the hopes, the virtue, and the repose, of millions:- they knew neither the proof, the meaning, nor the that the controversy be managed on both sides original: lastly, the equal and undoubting confiwith sincerity; that is, that nothing be produced, dence with which we hear the doctrines of Christ in the writings of either, contrary to, or beyond, or of Confucius, the law of Moses or of Mahomet, the writer's own knowledge and persuasion:- the Bible, the Koran, or the Shaster, maintained that objections and difficulties be proposed, from or anathematized, taught or abjured, revered or no other motive than an honest and serious desire derided, according as we live on this or on that to obtain satisfaction, or to communicate informa- side of a river; keep within or step over the bountion which may promote the discovery and pro-daries of a state; or even in the same country, and gress of truth-that in conformity with this de- by the same people, so often as the event of battle, sign, every thing be stated with integrity, with or the issue of a negociation, delivers them to the method, precision, and simplicity; and above all, dominion of a new master;-points, I say, of this that whatever is published in opposition to re- sort are exhibited to the public attention, as so ceived and confessedly beneficial persuasions, be many arguments against the truth of the Christian set forth under a form which is likely to invite in- religion;-and with success. For these topics, quiry and to meet examination. If with these being brought together, and set off with some ag moderate and equitable conditions be compared the gravation of circumstances, and with a vivacity manner in which hostilities have been waged of style and description familiar enough to the against the Christian religion, not only the votaries writings and conversation of free-thinkers, insen of the prevailing faith, but every man who looks sibly lead the imagination into a habit of classing forward with anxiety to the destination of his being, Christianity with the delusions that have taken will see much to blame and to complain of. By one possession, by turns, of the public belief; and of unbeliever, all the follies which have adhered, in a regarding it, as what the scoffers of our faith relong course of dark and superstitious ages, to the present it to be, the superstition of the day. popular creed, are assumed as so many doctrines But is this to deal honestly by the subject, or of Christ and his apostles, for the purpose of sub- with the world? May not the same things be said, verting the whole system by the absurdities which may not the same prejudices be excited by these it is thus represented to contain. By another, the representations, whether Christianity be true or ignorance and vices of the sacerdotal order, their false, or by whatever proofs its truth be attested? mutual dissensions and persecutions, their usur- May not truth as well as falsehood be taken upon pations and encroachments upon the intellectual credit? May not a religion be founded upon eviliberty and civil rights of mankind, have been dis-dence accessible and satisfactory to every mind complayed with no small triumph and invective; not petent to the inquiry, which yet, by the greatest so much to guard the Christian laity against a part of its professors, is received upon authority? repetition of the same injuries, (which is the only But if the matter of those objections be repreproper use to be made of the most flagrant exam-hensible, as calculated to produce an effect upon ples of the past,) as to prepare the way for an in- the reader beyond what their real weight and place sinuation, that the religion itself is nothing but a in the argument deserve, still more shall we discoprofitable fable, imposed upon the fears and cre- ver of management and disingenuousness in the dulity of the multitude, and upheld by the frauds form under which they are dispersed among the and influence of an interested and crafty priest- public. Infidelity is served up in every shape hood. And yet, how remotely is the character of that is likely to allure, surprise, or beguile the the clergy connected with the truth of Christiani- imagination; in a fable, a tale, a novel, a poem; ty! What, after all, do the most disgraceful pages in interspersed and broken hints, remote and ob of ecclesiastical history prove, but that the passions lique surmises; in books of travels, of philosophy, of natural history; in a word, in any form rather Who surrection of damnation:"-he had pronounced message of inestimable importance, and well worthy of that splendid apparatus of prophecy and miracles with which his mission was introduced and attested: a message in which the wisest of mankind would rejoice to find an answer to their doubts, and rest to their inquiries. It is idle to say, that a future state had been discovered already:-it had been discovered as the Copernican system was,-it was one guess among many. He alone discovers, who prores; and no man can prove this point, but the teacher who testifies by miracles that his doctrine comes from God. 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. into small communities, and by placing them from the beginning, under direction and control. A family contains the rudiments of an empire. The authority of one over many, and the disposition to govern and to be governed, are in this way incidental to the very nature, and coeval no doubt with the existence, of the human species. 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 trines, if we be not permitted to call them the sa- to introduce subjection and subordination among cred truths, of our religion, together with all the them: but the condition of human infancy pre adjuncts and appendages of its worship and ex-pares men for society, by combining individuals ternal profession, have been sometimes impudently profaned by an unnatural conjunction with impure and lascivious images. The fondness for ridicule is almost universal: and ridicule, to many minds, is never so irresistible, as when seasoned with obscenity, and employed upon religion. But in proportion as these noxious principles take hold 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. Seriousness is not constraint of thought; nor levity, freedom. Every mind which wishes the advancement of truth and knowledge, in the most important of all human researches, must abhor this licentiousness, as violating no less the laws of reasoning, than the rights of decency. There is but one description of men, to whose principles it ought to be tolerable; I mean that class of reasoners who can see little in Christianity, even supposing 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 the that have done evil, unto the re 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. Although the original progenitor was the centre of union to his posterity, yet it is not probable that the association would be immediately or altogether dissolved by his death. Connected by habits of intercourse and affection, and by some common rights, necessities, and interests, they would consider themselves as allied to each other in a nearer degree than to the rest of the species. 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 induced to supply his place by a formal choice of a successor; or rather might willingly, and almost imperceptibly, transfer their obedience to some one of the family, who by his age or services, or by the part he possessed in the direction of their affairs during the lifetime of the parent, had already 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. supporting the succession of his children: add to these reasons, that elections to the supreme power having, upon trial, produced destructive contentions, many states would take a refuge from a return of the same calamities in a rule of succession; and no rule presents itself so obvious, certain, and intelligible, as consanguinity of birth. 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 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. 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 au- Nor need we be surprised at the early exist thority of the patriarchal chief, or favoured by any ence in the world of some vast empires, or at the previous distinction of ancestry, it would be no rapidity with which they advanced to their greatdifficult undertaking for the person who possessedness, from comparatively small and obscure oriit, to obtain the almost absolute direction of the ginals. Whilst the inhabitants of so many counaffairs of the community; especially if he was tries were broken into numerous communities, careful to associate to himself proper auxiliaries, unconnected, and oftentimes contending with and content to practise the obvious art of gratify-each other; before experience had taught these ing or removing those who opposed his pretensions. 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 Lastly, our theory affords a presumption, that 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 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. 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. to the affairs of government, and to regard those exertions of power which have been long ex 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. COULD 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 universal subjugation of strength to weakness;than to see many millions of robust men, in the complete use and exercise of their personal faculties, and without any defect of courage, waiting upon the will of a child, a woman, a driveller, or a lunatic. And although, when we suppose a vast empire in absolute subjection to one person, and that one depressed beneath the level of his species by infirmities, or vice, we suppose perhaps an extreme case: yet in all cases, even the most popular forms of civil government, the physical strength resides in the governed. In what manner opinion thus prevails over strength, or how power, which naturally belongs to superior force, is maintained in opposition to it; in other words, by what motives the many are induced to submit to the few, becomes an inquiry which lies at the root of almost every political speculation. It re-ship of gods. The mythology of the heroic moves, indeed, but does not resolve, the difficulty, to say, that civil governments are now-a-days almost universally upholden by standing armies; for, the question still returns; How are these armies themselves kept in subjection, or made to obey the commands, and carry on the designs, of the prince or state which employs them? 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-in terest. In hereditary monarchies, the prescriptive title is corroborated, and its influence considerably augmented by an accession of religious sentiments, and by that sacredness which men are wont to ascribe to the persons of princes. Princes themselves have not failed to take advantage of this disposition, by claiming a superior dignity, as it were, of nature, or a peculiar delegation from the Supreme Being.-For this purpose were introduced the titles of Sacred Majesty, of God's Anointed, Representative, Vicegerent, together with the ceremonies of investitures and coronations, which are calculated not so much to recognize the authority of sovereigns, as to consecrate their persons. Where a fabulous religion permitted it, the public veneration has been challenged by bolder pretensions. The Roman emperors usurped the titles and arrogated the worages, and of many barbarous nations, was easily converted to this purpose. Some princes, like the heroes of Homer, and the founder of the Roman name, derived their birth from the gods; others, with Numa, pretended a secret communication with some divine being; and others, again, like 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. entertains it. 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; 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 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. 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 ease, 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 opinion 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. soldiers more to be dreaded than any other insurrection. 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. 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 4. As ignorance of union, and want of com- majority; that majority, in the next place, to have munication, appear amongst the principal pre-fixed certain fundamental regulations: and then servatives 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 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 constitu tion, 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 |