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46 TREATISE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT

society; unless any one will say the state of nature and civil society
are one and the same thing, which I have never yet found any one so
great a patron of anarchy as to affirm.*

CHAPTER VIII

OF THE BEGINNING OF POLITICAL SOCIETIES

95. MEN being, as has been said, by nature all free, equal, and indepen-
dent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political
power of another, without his own consent. The only way by which
any one divests himself of his natural liberty and puts on the bonds of
civil society is by agreeing' with other men to join and unite into a
community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one
amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a
greater security against any that are not of it. This any number of
men may do, because it injures not the freedom of the rest; they are
left as they were in the liberty of the state of nature. When any number
of men have so consented to make one community or government,
they are thereby presently incorporated, and make one body politic,
wherein the majority have a right to act and conclude the rest.
96. For when any number of men have, by the consent of every
individual, made a community, they have thereby made that com-
munity one body, with a power to act as one body, which is only by
the will and determination of the majority. For that which acts any
community being only the consent of the individuals of it, and it being
necessary to that which is one body to move 2 one way, it is necessary
the body should move that way whither the greater force carries it,
which is the consent of the majority; or else it is impossible it should
act or continue one body, one community, which the consent of every
individual that united into it agreed that it should; and so every one
is bound by that consent to be concluded by the majority. And there-
fore we see that in assemblies empowered to act by positive laws,
* "Civil law, being the act of the whole body politic, doth therefore overrule each
several part of the same body."-Hooker (ibid.).
1 Altered in collected edition. Earlier editions read: "... his own consent, which is
done by agreeing..."
2 Altered in collected edition. Earlier editions read: "... it being one body must move
one way..."
 OF THE BEGINNING OF POLITICAL SOCIETIES 49
where no number is set by that positive law which empowers them,
the act of the majority passes for the act of the whole, and of course
determines, as having by the law of nature and reason the power of
the whole.
97. And thus every man, by consenting with others to make one
body politic under one government, puts himself under an obligation
to every one of that society, to submit to the determination of the
majority, and to be concluded by it; or else this original compact,
whereby he with others incorporates into one society, would signify
nothing, and be no compact, if he be left free and under no other ties
than he was in before in the state of nature. For what appearance
would there be of any compact? What new engagement if he were
no farther tied by any decrees of the society, than he himself thought
fit, and did actually consent to? This would be still as great a liberty
as he himself had before his compact, or any one else in the state of
nature hath, who may submit himself and consent to any acts of it if he
thinks fit.
98. For if the consent of the majority shall not in reason be received
as the act of the whole and conclude every individual, nothing but
the consent of every individual can make anything to be the act of the
whole, which considering the infirmities of health and avocations of
business, which in a number, though much less than that of a common-
wealth, will necessarily keep many away from the public assembly.
To which ifwe add the variety of opinions, and contrariety of interests,
which unavoidably happen in all collections of men, the coming into
society upon such terms would be onlyl like Cato's coming into the
theatre, tantum ut exiret. Such a constitution as this would make the
mighty leviathan of a shorter duration than the feeblest creatures, and
not let it outlast the day it was born in; which cannot be supposed till
we can think that rational creatures should desire and constitute societies
only to be dissolved. For where the majority cannot conclude the
rest, there they cannot act as one body, and consequently will be
immediately dissolved again.
99. Whosoever therefore out of a state of nature unite into a com-
munity must be understood to give up all the power necessary to the
ends for which they unite into society, to the majority of the com-
munity, unless they expressly agreed in any number greater than the
I Altered in collected edition. Earlier editions read: "... public assembly, and the
variety of opinions, and contrariety of interest, which unavoidably happen in all collec-
tions of men, 'tis next to impossible ever to be had. And therefore if the coming into
society be upon such terms it will be only like Cato's..."
 )U TREATISE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT

majority. And this is done by barely agreeing to unite into one

political society, which is all the compact that is, or needs be, between
the individuals that enter into or make up a commonwealth. And
thus that which begins and actually constitutes any political society is
nothing but the consent of any number of freemen capable ofa majority
to unite and incorporate into such a society. And this is that, and that
only, which did or could give beginning to any lawful government
in the world.
100. To this I find two objections made.
First: That there are no instances to be found in story of a company
of men, independent and equal one amongst another, that met together
and in this way began and set up a government.
Secondly: 'Tis impossible of right that men should do so, because
all men being born under government, they are to submit to that,
and are not at liberty to begin a new one.
101. To the first there is this to answer: That it is not at all to be
wondered that history gives us but a very little account of men that
lived together in the state of nature. The inconveniences of that
condition, and the love and want of society, no sooner brought any
number of them together, but they presently united and incorporated
if they designed to continue together. And if we may not suppose
men ever to have been in the state of nature, because we hear not
much of them in such a state, we may as well suppose the armies of
Salmanasser or Xerxes were never children, because we hear little of
them till they were men, and embodied in armies. Government is
everywhere antecedent to records, and letters seldom come in amongst
a people, till a long continuation of civil society has, by other more
necessary arts, provided for their safety, ease, and plenty. And then
they begin to look after the history of their founders, and search into
their original, when they have outlived the memory of it. For 'tis
with commonwealths as with particular persons, they are commonly
ignorant of their own birth and infancies. And if they know anything
of their original, they are beholden for it to the accidental records that
others have kept of it. And those that we have of the beginning of any
polities in the world, excepting that of the Jews, where God himself
immediately interposed, and which favours not at all paternal dominion,
are all either plain instances of such a beginning as I have mentioned,
or at least have manifest footsteps of it.
102. He must show a strange inclination to deny evident matter
of fact when it agrees not with his hypothesis, who will not allow
 OF THE BEGINNING OF POLITICAL SOCIETIES 51
that the beginning of Rome and Venice were by the uniting together
of several men free and independent one of another, amongst whom
there was no natural superiority or subjection. And if Josephus
Acosta's word may be taken, he tells us that in many parts of America
there was no government at all. "There are great and apparent
conjectures," says he, "that these men," speaking of those of Peru,
"for a long time had neither kings nor commonwealths, but lived in
troops, as they do this day in Florida, the Cheriquanas, those of Brazil,
and many other nations, which have no certain kings, but as occasion
is offered in peace or war, they choose their captains as they please"
(1.i, c. 25). If it be said that every man there was born subject to his
father, or the head of his family, that the subjection due from a child
to a father took not away his freedom of uniting into what political
society he thought fit, has been already proved. But be that as it will,
these men, it is evident, were actually free; and whatever superiority
some politicians now would place in any of them, they themselves
claimed it not; but by consent were all equal, till by the same consent
they set rulers over themselves. So that their politic societies all began
from a voluntary union, and the mutual agreement of men freely
acting in the choice of their governors and forms of government.
103. And I hope those who went away from Sparta with Palantus,
mentioned by Justin, I. iii, c. 4, will be allowed to have been freemen,
independent one of another, and to have set up a government over
themselves, by their own consent. Thus I have given several examples
out of history of people free and in the state of nature that, being met
together, incorporated and began a commonwealth. And if the want
of such instances be an argument to prove that government were not
nor could not be so begun, I suppose the contenders to paternal
empire were better let it alone than urge it against natural liberty. For
if they can give so many instances, out of history, of governments
begun upon paternal right, I think (though at best an argument from
what has been, to what should of right be, has no great force) one
might, without any great danger, yield them the cause. But if I might
advise them in the case, they would do well not to search too much
into the original of governments as they have begun defacto, lest they
should find at the foundation of most of them something very little
favourable to the design they promote and such a power as they
contend for.
104. But to conclude, reason being plain on our side that men
are naturally free, and the examples of history showing that the
nz TREATISE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT

governments of the world, that were begun in peace, had their

beginning laid on that foundation, and were made by the consent of
the people, there can be little room for doubt, either where the right
is, or what has been the opinion or practice of mankind, about the
first erecting of governments.
105. I will not deny, that if we look back as far as history will
direct us, towards the original of commonwealths, we shall generally
find them under the government and administration of one man.
And I am also apt to believe that where a family was numerous
enough to subsist by itself, and continued entire together, without
mixing with others, as it often happens where there is much land and
few people, the government commonly began in the father. For the
father having, by the law of nature, the same power with every man
else to punish as he thought fit any offences against that law, might
thereby punish his transgressing children, even when they were men,
and out of their pupilage; and they were very likely to submit to his
punishment, and all join with him against the offender, in their turns,
giving him thereby power to execute his sentence against any trans-
gression, and so in effect make him the lawmaker and governor over
all that remained in conjunction with his family. He was fittest to be
trusted; paternal affection secured their property and interest under
his care; and the custom of obeying him in their childhood made it
easier to submit to him rather than to any other. If therefore they
must have one to rule them, as government is hardly to be avoided
amongst men that live together, who so likely to be the man as he
that was their common father; unless negligence, cruelty, or any other
defect of mind or body, made him unfit for it? But when either the
father died, and left his next heir, for want of age, wisdom, courage,
or any other qualities, less fit for rule, or where several families met
and consented to continue together, there it is not to be doubted but
they used their natural freedom to set up him whom they judged the
ablest and most likely to rule well over them. Conformable hereunto
we find the people of America, who (living out of the reach of the
conquering swords and spreading domination of the two great empires
of Peru and Mexico) enjoyed their own natural freedom, though,
carteris paribus, they commonly prefer the heir of their deceased king;
yet if they find him any way weak or incapable they pass him by and
set up the stoutest and bravest man for their ruler.
106. Thus, though looking back as far as records give us any
account of peopling the world, and the history ofnations, we commonly
 OF THE BEGINNING OF POLITICAL SOCIETIES 53
find the government to be in one hand; yet it destroys not that which I
affirm, viz., that the beginning of politic society depends upon the
consent of the individuals to join into and make one society; who, when
they are thus incorporated, might set up what form of government
they thought fit. But this having given occasion to men to mistake,
and think that by nature government was monarchical, and belonged
to the father, it may not be amiss here to consider why people in the
beginning generally pitched upon this form, which, though perhaps
the father's pre-eminence might in the first institution of some
commonwealths give a rise to, and place in the beginning, the power
in one hand; yet it is plain that the reason that continued the form of
government in a single person was not any regard or respect to
paternal authority, since all petty monarchies, that is, almost all
monarchies, near their original, have been commonly-at least upon
occasion-elective.
107. First then, in the beginning of things, the father's government
of the childhood of those sprung from him having accustomed them
to the rule of one man, and taught them that where it was exercised
with care and skill, with affection and love to those under it, it was
sufficient to procure and preserve men all the political happiness they
sought for in society. It was no wonder that they should pitch upon
and naturally run into that form of government, which from their
infancy they had been all accustomed to, and which, by experience,
they had found both easy and safe. To which, if we add, that monarchy
being simple and most obvious to men whom neither experience
had instructed in forms of government, nor the ambition or insolence
of empire had taught to beware of the encroachments of prerogative,
or the inconveniences of absolute power, which monarchy in succes-
sion was apt to lay claim to, and bring upon them; it was not at all
strange that they should not much trouble themselves to think of
methods of restraining any exorbitances of those to whom they had
given the authority over them, and of balancing the power of govern-
ment, by placing several parts of it in different hands. They ha4 neither
felt the oppression of tyrannical dominion, nor did the fashion of the
age, nor their possessions or way of living (which afforded little matter
for covetousness or ambition), give them any reason to apprehend or
provide against it; and therefore it is no wonder they put themselves
into such a frame of government as was not only, as I said, most
obvious and simple, but also best suited to their present state and
condition, which stood more in need of defence against foreign
54 TREATISE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT

invasions and injuries than of multiplicity of laws. The equality of

a simple poor way of living, confining their desires within the bounds
of each man's small property, made few controversies, and so no need
of many laws to decide them, or variety of officers to superintend the
process or look after the execution of justice,' where there were but
few trespasses and few offenders. Since, then, those who liked one
another so well as to join into society, cannot but be supposed to have
some acquaintance and friendship together, and some trust one in
another, they could not but have greater apprehensions of others
than of one of another; and therefore their first care and thought
cannot but be supposed to be how to secure themselves against foreign
force. It was natural for them to put themselves under a frame of
government which might best serve to that end; and choose the wisest
and bravest man to conduct them in their wars, and lead them out
against their enemies, and in this chiefly be their ruler.
108. Thus we see that the kings of the Indians in America-which
is still a pattern of the first ages in Asia and Europe whilst the inhabi-
tants were too few for the country, and want of people and money
gave men no temptation to enlarge their possessions of land, or contest
for wider extent of ground-are little more than generals of their
armies; and though they command absolutely in war, yet at home
and in time of peace they exercise very little dominion, and have but
a very moderate sovereignty; the resolutions of peace and war being
ordinarily either in the people or in a council. Though the war itself,
which admits not of plurality of governors, naturally devolves the
command into the king's sole authority.
109. And thus in Israel itself, the chief business of their judges and
first kings seems to have been to be captains of war, and leaders of
their armies; which (besides what is signified by going out and in
before the people, which was, to march forth to war, and home again
in the heads of their forces) appears plainly in the story of Jephtha.
The Ammonites making war upon Israel, the Gileadites in fear send
toJephtha, a bastard of their family whom they had cast off, and article
with him, if he will assist them against the Ammonites, to make him
their ruler; which they do in these words: "And the people made him
head and captain over them" (Judges xi. 11), which was, as it seems,
all one as to be judge. "And he judged Israel" (Judges xii. 7), that is,
1 Altered in collected edition. Earlier editions read: ".. . multiplicity of laws, where
there was but very little property; and wanted not variety of rulers and abundance of
officers to direct and look after their execution, where there were but few. .. "
 OF THE BEGINNING OF POLITICAL SOCIETIES 55
was their captain-general, six years. So when Jotham upbraids the
Shechemites with the obligation they had to Gideon, who had been
their judge and ruler, he tells them "He fought for you, and adven-
tured his life for, and delivered you out of the hands of Midian"
(Judges ix. 17). Nothing mentioned of him but what he did as a
general; and indeed that is all is found in his history, or in any of the
rest of the judges. And Abimelech particularly is called king, though
at most he was but their general. And when, being weary of the ill-
conduct of Samuel's sons, the children of Israel desired a king "like
all the nations, to judge them and to go out before them, and to fight
their battles" (1 Sam. viii. 20), God, granting their desire, says to
Samuel: "I will send thee a man, and thou shalt anoint him to be
captain over my people Israel, that he may save my people out of the
hands of the Philistines" (ix. 16). As if the only business of a king had
been to lead out their armies, and fight in their defence; and accordingly
at his inauguration pouring a vial of oil upon him, declares to Saul that
"the Lord had anointed him to be captain over his inheritance" (x. 1).
And, therefore, those who, after Saul's being solemnly chosen and
saluted king by the tribes at Mizpah, were unwilling to have him their
king, make no other objection but this: "How shall this man save
us?" (verse 27) as if they should have said, "This man is unfit to be our
king, not having skill and conduct enough in war to be able to defend
us." And when God resolved to transfer the government to David,
it is in these words: "But now thy kingdom shall not continue. The
Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the Lord hath
commanded him to be captain over his people" (xiii. 4), as if the whole
kingly authority were nothing else but to be their general; and, there-
fore, the tribes who had stuck to Saul's family, and opposed David's
reign, when they came to Hebron with terms of submission to him,
they tell him, amongst other arguments, they had to submit to him as
to their king, that he was, in effect, their king in Saul's time, and
therefore, they had no reason but to receive him as their king now.
"Also," say they, "in time past, when Saul was king over us, thou wast
he that leddest out and broughtest in Israel, and the Lord said unto
thee, 'Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be a captain
over Israel.' "
110. Thus, whether a family by degrees grew up into a common-
wealth, and the fatherly authority being continued on to the elder son,
every one in his turn growing up under it, tacitly submitted to it; and
the easiness and equality of it not offending any one, every one
56 TREATISE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT

acquiesced, till time seemed to have confirmed it, and settled a right
of succession by prescription; or whether several families, or the
descendants of several families, whom chance, neighbourhood, or
business brought together, uniting into a society, the need of a general,
whose conduct might defend them against their enemies in war, and
the great confidence the innocency and sincerity of that poor but
virtuous age (such as are almost all those which begin governments
that ever come to last in the world) gave men one of another, made the
first beginners of commonwealths generally put the rule into one
man's hand, without any other express limitation or restraint, but
what the nature of the thing and the end of government required.
Whichever of those it was that at first put the rule into the hands of a
single person, certain it is that nobody was entrusted with it but' for
the public good and safety, and to those ends, in the infancies of
commonwealths, they commonly used it. And unless they had done
so, young societies could not have subsisted. Without such nursing
fathers, tender and careful of the public weal,2 all governments would
have sunk under the weakness and infirmities of their infancy, and s the
prince and people had soon perished together.
111. But the golden age (though before vain ambition, and amor
sceleratus habendi, evil concupiscence had corrupted men's minds into a
mistake of true power and honour) had more virtue, and consequently
better governors, as well as less vicious subjects; and there was then
no stretching prerogative, on the one side, to oppress the people, nor
consequently, on the other, any dispute about privilege, to lessen or
restrain the power of the magistrate, and so no contest betwixt rulers
and people about governors or government.* Yet, when ambition
and luxury in future ages would retain and increase the power, without
doing the business for which it was given, and, aided by flattery,
taught princes to have distinct and separate interests from their people,
L Altered in collected edition. Earlier editions read: "... government required. It
was given them for the public good..."
2 Altered in collected edition. Earlier editions read: "... nursing fathers, without this
care of the governors, all governments..
a "And" inserted in collected edition.
* "At the first, when some certain kind of regimen was once approved, it may be
that nothing was then further thought upon for the manner of governing, but all per-
nitted unto their wisdom and discretion, which were to rule till, by experience, they
found this for all parts very inconvenient, so as the thing which they had devised for a
remedy did indeed but increase the sore which it should have cured. They saw that to
live by one man's will became the cause of all men's misery. This constrained them to
come unto laws wherein all men might see their duty beforehand, and know the penalties
of transgressing them."-Hooker (Eccl. Pol., lib. i, sect. 10).
 OF THE BEGINNING OF POLITICAL SOCIETIES 57
men found it necessary to examine more carefully the original and
rights of government, and to find out ways to restrain the exorbi-
tances and prevent the abuses of that power which, they having en-
trusted in another's hands only for their own good, they found was
made use of to hurt them.
112. Thus we may see how probable it is that people that were
naturally free, and by their own consent either submitted to the
government of their father, or united together out of different families
to make a government, should generally put the rule into one man's
hands, and choose to be under the conduct of a single person, without
so much as by express conditions limiting or regulating his power,
which they thought safe enough in his honesty and prudence, though
they never dreamt of monarchy being jure divino, which we never
heard of among mankind till it was revealed to us by the divinity of
this last age, nor ever allowed paternal power to have a right to
dominion, or to be the foundation of all government. And thus much
may suffice to show that, as far as we have any light from history,
we have reason to conclude that all peaceful beginnings of government
have been laid in the consent of the people. I say peaceful, because I
shall have occasion in another place to speak of conquest, which some
esteem a way of beginning of governments.
The other objection I find urged against the beginning of polities
in the way I have mentioned is this, viz.:
113. That all men being born under government, some or other,
it is impossible any of them should ever be free and at liberty to unite
together and begin a new one, or ever be able to erect a lawful govern-
ment.
If this argument be good, I ask, how came so many lawful monar-
chies into the world? For if anybody, upon this supposition, can show
me any one man, in any age of the world, free to begin a lawful
monarchy, I will be bound to show him ten other free men at liberty
at the same time to unite and begin a new government under a regal,
or any other form, it being demonstration that if any one, born under
the dominion of another, may be so free as to have a right to command
others in a new and distinct empire, every one that is born under the
dominion of another may be so free too, and may become a ruler or
subject of a distinct separate government. And so by this their own
principle either all men, however born, are free, or else there is but one
lawful prince, one lawful government in the world. And then they
have nothing to do but barely to show us which that is; which, when
Ns TREATISE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT

they have done, I doubt not but all mankind will easily agree to pay
obedience to him.
114. Though it be a suficient answer to their objection to show
that it involves them in the same difficulties that it doth those they use
it against, yet I shall endeavour to discover the weakness of this argu-
ment a little farther.
"All men," say they, "are born under government, and therefore
they cannot be at liberty to begin a new one. Every one is born a
subject to his father, or his prince, and is therefore under the perpetual
tie of subjection and allegiance." It is plain mankind never owned nor
considered any such natural subjection that they were born in, to one
or to the other that tied them without their own consents, to a subjec-
tion to them and their heirs.
115. For there are no examples so frequent in history, both sacred
and profane, as those of men withdrawing themselves and their
obedience from the jurisdiction they were born under, and the family
or community they were bred up in, and setting up new governments
in other places; from whence sprang all that number of petty common-
wealths in the beginning of ages, and which always multiplied, as
long as there was room enough, till the stronger or more fortunate
swallowed the weaker; and those great ones again breaking to pieces,
dissolved into lesser dominions, all which are so many testimonies
against paternal sovereignty, and plainly prove that it was not the
natural right of the father descending to his heirs that made govern-
ment in the beginning, since it was impossible upon that ground there
should have been so many little kingdoms, but only one universal
monarchy if men had not been at liberty to separate themselves from
their families and their government, be it what it will, that was set
up in it, and go and make distinct commonwealths and other govern-
ments as they thought fit.
116. This has been the practice of the world from its first beginning
to this day; nor is it now any more hindrance to the freedom of man-
kind that they are born under constituted and ancient polities that have
established laws and set forms of government, than if they were born
in the woods amongst the unconfined inhabitants that run loose in
them. For those who would persuade us that by being born under any
government we are naturally subjects to it, and have no more any title
or pretence to the freedom of the state of nature, have no other
reason (bating that of paternal power, which we have already answered)
to produce for it, but only because our fathers or progenitors passed
 OF THE BEGINNING OF POLITICAL SOCIETIES 59
away their natural liberty, and thereby bound up themselves and their
posterity to a perpetual subjection to the government which they
themselves submitted to. It is true that whatever engagements or
promises any one made for himself, he is under the obligation of them,
but cannot by any compact whatsoever bind his children or posterity.
For his son when a man being altogether as free as his father, any act of
the father can no more give away the liberty of the son than it can
of anybody else. He may indeed annex such conditions to the land
he enjoyed as a subject of any commonwealth as may oblige his son
to be of that community, if he will enjoy those possessions which were
his father's, because that estate being his father's property he may
dispose or settle it as he pleases.
117. And this has generally given the occasion to the mistake in
this matter, because commonwealths not permitting any part of
their dominions to be dismembered, nor to be enjoyed by any but
those of their community, the son cannot ordinarily enjoy the posses-
sions of his father but under the same terms his father did: by becoming
a member of the society; whereby he puts himself presently under the
government he finds there established as much as any other subject
of that commonwealth. And thus the consent of freemen, born under
government, which only makes them members of it, being given
separately in their turns, as each comes to be of age, and not in a
multitude together, people take no notice of it, and thinking it not
done at all, or not necessary, conclude they are naturally subjects as
they are men.
118. But 'tis plain governments themselves understand it otherwise;
they claim no power over the son, because of that they had over the
father; nor look on children as being their subjects by their father's
being so. If a subject of England have a child by an English woman
in France, whose subject is he? Not the King of England's, for he must
have leave to be admitted to the privileges of it; nor the King of
France's, for how then has his father a liberty to bring him away and
breed him as he pleases? And whoever was judged as a traitor or
deserter, if he left or warred against a country, for being barely born in
it of parents that were aliens there? It is plain then by the practice of
governments themselves, as well as by the law of right reason, that a
child is born a subject of no country or government. He is under his
father's tuition and authority till he comes to age of discretion, and then
he is a freeman, at liberty what government he will put himself under,
what body politic he will unite himself to. For if an Englishman's
60 TREATISE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT

son, born in France, be at liberty, and may do so, it is evident there

is no tie upon him by his father's being a subject of that kingdom;
nor is he bound up by any compact of his ancestors. And why then
hath not his son by te same reason, the same liberty, though he be
born anywhere else? Since the power that a father hath naturally
over his children is the same wherever they be born, and the ties of
natural obligations are not bounded by the positive limits of kingdoms
and commonwealths.
119. Every man being, as has been shown, naturally free, and
nothing being able to put him into subjection to any earthly power
but only his own consent, it is to be considered what shall be under-
stood to be sufficient declaration of a man's consent to make him
subject to the laws of any government. There is a common distinction
of an express and a tacit consent, which will concern our present case.
Nobody doubts but an express consent of any man entering into any
society makes him a perfect member of that society, a subject of that
government. The difficulty is,what ought to be looked upon as a tacit
consent, and how far it binds, i.e., how far any one shall be looked on
to have consented, and thereby submitted to any government, where
he has made no expressions of it at all. And to this I say that every
man that hath any possession or enjoyment of any part of the dominions
of any government doth thereby give his tacit consent, and is as far
forth obliged to obedience to the laws of that government during
such enjoyment as any one under it; whether this his possession be of
land to him and his heirs for ever, or a lodging only for a week; or
whether it be barely travelling freely on the highway; and in effect it
reaches as far as the very being of any one within the territories of that
government.
120. To understand this the better, it is fit to consider that every
man when he at first incorporates himself into any commonwealth, he,
by his uniting himself thereunto, annexed also, and submits to the
community, those possessions which he has or shall acquire that do
not already belong to any other government; for it would be a direct
contradiction for any one to enter into society with others for the
securing and regulating of property, and yet to suppose his land,
whose property is to be regulated by the laws of the society, should be
exempt from the jurisdiction of that government to which he himself,
the proprietor, of the land, is a subject. By the same act, therefore,
I Corrected in 3rd edition. Earlier editions read: "... he himself, and the property of
the land ... "
 OF THE BEGINNING OF POLITICAL SOCIETIES 01

whereby any one unites his person, which was before free, to any
commonwealth, by the same he unites his possessions, which were
before free, to it also; and they become, both of them, person and
possession, subject to the government and dominion of that common-
wealth as long as it hath a being. Whoever therefore from thence-
forth by inheritance, purchases, permission, or otherwise, enjoys any
part of the land so annexed to, and under the government of that
commonwealth, must take it with the condition it is under, that is,
of submitting to the government of the commonwealth under whose
jurisdiction it is as far forth as any subject of it.
121. But since the government has a direct jurisdiction only over
the land, and reaches the possessor of it (before he has actually incor-
porated himself in the society), only as he dwells upon, and enjoys that:
the obligation any one is under, by virtue of such enjoyment, to submit
to the government, begins and ends with the enjoyment; so that
whenever the owner, who has given nothing but such a tacit consent
to the government, will by donation, sale, or otherwise, quit the said
possession, he is at liberty to go and incorporate himself into any other
commonwealth, or to agree with others to begin a new one, in vacuis
locis, in any part of the world they can find free and unpossessed.
Whereas he that has once by actual agreement and any express declara-
tion given his consent to be of any commonweal is perpetually and
indispensably obliged to be and remain unalterably a subject to it, and
can never be again in the liberty of the state of nature; unless, by any
calamity, the government he was under comes to be dissolved, or else
by some public acts cuts him off from being any longer a member
of it.
122. But submitting to the laws of any country, living quietly
and enjoying privileges and protection under them makes not a man
a member of that society. This is only a local protection and homage
due to and from all those who, not being in the state of war, come
within the territories belonging to any government to all parts whereof
the force of its law extends. But this no more makes a man a member
of that society a perpetual subject of that commonwealth, than it
would make a man a subject to another in whose family he found it
convenient to abide for some time; though whilst he continued in it
he were obliged to comply with the laws, and submit to the govern-
ment he found there. And thus we see, that foreigners by living all
their lives under another government, and enjoying the privileges
and protection of it, though they are bound even in conscience to
62 TREATISE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT

submit to its administration as far forth as any denizen, yet do not

thereby come to be subjects or members of that commonwealth.
Nothing can make any man so, but his actually entering into it by
positive engagement, and express promise and compact. This is that,
which I think, concerning the beginning of political societies, and
that consent which makes any one a member of any commonwealth.

CHAPTER IX

OF THE ENDS OF POLITICAL SOCIETY AND

GOVERNMENT

123. IF man in the state of nature be so free, as has been said, if he be

absolute lord of his own person and possessions, equal to the greatest,
and subject to nobody, why will he part with his freedom, this empire,
and subject himself to the dominion and control of any other power?
To which it is obvious to answer, that though in the state of nature
he hath such a right, yet the enjoyment of it is very uncertain, and
constantly exposed to the invasions of others. For all being kings as
much as he, every man his equal, and the greater part no strict observers
of equity and justice, the enjoyment of the property he has in this
state is very unsafe, very unsecure. This makes him willing to quit
this condition, which, however free, is full of fears and continual
dangers; and it is not without reason that he seeks out and is willing
to join in society with others, who are already united, or have a mind
to unite, for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties, and estates,
which I call by the general name, property.
124. The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into
commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the
preservation of their property; to which in the state of nature there are
many things wanting.
First, There wants an established, settled, known law, received and
allowed by common consent to be the standard of right and wrong,
and the common measure to decide all controversies between them.
For though the law of nature be plain and intelligible to all rational
creatures; yet men, being biased by their interest, as well as ignorant
for want of study of it, are not apt to allow of it as a law binding to
them in the application of it to their particular cases.