Of the Beginning of Political Societies.
Sec. 95. MEN being, as has been said, by nature, all free,
equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and
subjected to the political power of another, without his own
consent. The only way whereby 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.
Sec. 96. For when any number of men have, by the consent of
every individual, made a community, they have thereby made that
community 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 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.
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