To which if we 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 only like Cato's coming into the
theatre, only to go out again. 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 bom 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.
Sec. 99. Whosoever therefore out of a state of nature unite
into a community, must be understood to give up all the power,
necessary to the ends for which they unite into society, to the
majority of the community, unless they expresly agreed in any
number greater than the 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 of a majority to unite
and incorporate into such a society.
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