PHI LOS 0 P H Y . - Classic Works of Apologetics Online

808 ~rigin of Civil r;overnment.
knowledged superiority-a reigning prince, leaving
behind him many adherents, who can preserve their
own importance, only by supporting the succession
of his child~en-·Add to these reaSOI1S, that elections
t(1 the supreme power having, upon trial, produced
desttuctive contentions, mallY states would take ref.
uge from a return of the same calamities, in a rule
of" succession ; and no rule present~ it~elf so obvious,
certain, and irltelligible, 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 governmerrt would lead
us to expect. The earlie.~t histories of Palestine,
Greece, Italy, Gaul, Britain, illforln U~, that these
countries were occupied by many small independent
nations, not much perhaps unlike th{)se \vhich are
found at present amongst the savage inhabitants of
North America, and upon the coast of Africa. rfhese
nation~ I consider as the amplifications of so many
single families, or as derived from the junction of
two or three families, w hom society ill war, or the
approach of some common dallger, had united.
Suppose a country to have been first peopled by ship ..
wreck 011 its coasts, or by emigrant~ or exiles fronl
a neighbouring country, the new settlers having no
~emy 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 governnlent~ or indeed of any political union
whatever; but each settler would renlain at the
head of his own family, and each family would include
all of every age and generation who were de ..
scended 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 multi •
. plied, into tribes, clans, hordes, or nations, similar
to those into which the ancient inhabitants of many
countries are krlown to have been divided, and