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-eminency 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.
Sec. 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 to 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.
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