*progeny (d the creatures was fomies me THE TO DE had to make use of those things that ve useft to tit being

$p. 2th being the reason and fomitor of Lim's bayramy gave the same tide of the same grond L La or dret, as our fer his death by his feine: w, that were wis to privlege of this "her" bore his other 4 dren, wilck onllà exclude them from an equal right the use of the kleia cetires for the comfomatue wwwton of wer beings; which is at the property bath in them; and vo Adard's sovereignty built on property, private dominion." comes to WAVING Vovery man had a right to the creatures by the wome due Adé hat-viz., by the right every one had to take care of and provide for their subsistence, and thus men bad a right in common, Adam's children in common with him. But if any one had begun and made himself a property in any particular thing (which how he or any one else could do shall be shown in another place), that thing, that possession, if he disposed not otherwise of it by his positive grant, descended naturally to his children, and they had a right to succeed to it and possess it.

88, It might reasonably be asked here, how come children by this right of possessing, before any other, the properties of their parents upon their decease, for it being

personally the parents, when they die, without actually transferring their right to another, why does it not return again to the common stock of mankind? It will perhaps be answered that common consent hath disposed of it to the children. Common practice, we see, indeed, does so dispose of it; but we cannot say that it is the common consent of mankind, for that hath never been asked nor actually given; and if common tacit consent had established it, it would make but a positive and not natural right of children to inherit the goods of their parents; but where the practice is universal, it is reasonable to think the cause is natural. The ground, then, I think to be this: the first and strongest desire God planted in men, and wrought into the very principle of their nature, being that of selfpreservation, is the foundation of a right to the creatures for their particular support and use of each individual person himself. But, next to this, God planted in men a strong desire also of propagating their kind, and continuing themselves in their posterity, and this gives children a title to share in the "property" of their parents, and a right to inherit their possessions. Men are not proprietors of what they have merely for themselves, their children have a title to part of it, and have their kind of right joined with their parents, in the possession which comes to be wholly theirs, when death, having put an end to their parents' use of it, hath taken them from their possessions, and this we call inheritance. Men being by a like obligation bound to preserve what they have begotten, as to preserve themselves, their issue come to have a right in the goods they are possessed of. And that children have such a right is plain from the laws of God, and that men are convinced that children have such a right is evident from the law of the land, both which laws require parents to provide for their children.

89. For children being, by the course of nature, born weak, and unable to provide for themselves, they have by the appointment of God Himself, who hath thus ordered the course of nature, a right to be nourished and maintained by their parents, nay, a right not only to a bare subsistence, but to the conveniences and comforts of life as far as the conditions of their parents can afford it ; and hence it comes

that when their parents leave the world, and so the care due to their children ceases, the effects of it are to extend as far as possibly they can, and the provisions they have made in their lifetime are understood to be intended as Nature requires they should, for their children, whom after themselves they are bound to provide for, though the dying. parents, by express words, declare nothing about them, nature appoints the descent of their property to their children, who thus come to have a title and natural right of inheritance to their father's goods, which the rest of mankind cannot pretend to.

90. Were it not for this right of being nourished and maintained by their parents, which God and nature has given to children, and obliged parents to, as a duty, it would be reasonable that the father should inherit the estate of his son, and be preferred in the inheritance before his grandchild, for to the grandfather there is due a long score of care and experience laid out upon the breeding and education of his son, which one would think in justice ought to be paid, but that having been done in obedience to the same law whereby he received nourishment and education from his own parents, this score of education received from a man's father is paid by taking care and providing for his own children (is paid, I say, as much as is required of payment by alteration of property, unless present necessity of the parents require a return of goods for their necessary support and subsistence; for we are not now speaking of that reverence, acknowledgment, respect, and honour that is always due from children to their parents, but of possessions and commodities of life. valuable by money); but yet this debt to the children does not quite cancel the score due to the father, but only is made by nature preferable to it. For the debt a man owes his father takes place, and gives the father a right to inherit the son's goods, where, for want of issue, the right of children doth not exclude that title. And therefore a man having a right to be maintained by his children where he need it, and to enjoy also the comforts of life from them, when the necessary provision due to them and their children will afford it, if his son die without issue, the father has a right in nature to possess his goods and inherit his estate

(whatever the municipal laws of some countries may absurdly direct otherwise), and so again his children and their issue from him, or, for want of such, his father and his issue; but where no such are to be found-i.e., no kindred-there we see the possessions of a private man revert to the community, and so in politic societies come into the hands of the public magistrate, but in the state of nature become again perfectly common, nobody having a right to inherit them, nor can any one have a property in them otherwise than in other things common by nature, of which I shall speak in its due place.

91. I have been the larger in showing upon what ground children have a right to succeed to the possession of their father's properties, not only because by it it will appear that if Adam had a property (a titular insignificant useless property; for it could be no better, for he was bound to nourish and maintain his children and posterity out of it) in the whole earth and its product, yet all his children coming to have by the law of nature and right of inheritance a joint title, and right of property in it after his death, it could convey no right of sovereignty to any one of his posterity over the rest, since every one having a right of inheritance to his portion, they might enjoy their inheritance, or any part of it in common, or share it, or some parts of it, by division, as it best liked them, but no one could pretend to the whole inheritance, or any sovereignty supposed to accompany it, since a right of inheritance gave every one of the rest, as well as any one, a title to share in the goods of his father. Not only upon this account, I say, have I been so particular in examining the reason of children's inheriting the property of their fathers, but also because it will give us farther light in the inheritance of “rule” and power," which in countries where their particular municipal laws give the whole possession of land entirely to the first born, and descent of power has gone so to men by this custom, some have been apt to be deceived into an opinion that there was a natural or Divine right of primogeniture to both "estate" and (6 power," and that the inheritance of both "rule" over men and property in things sprung from the same original, and were to descend by the same rules.

92. Property, whose original is from the right a man has to use any of the inferior creatures for the subsistence and comfort of his life, is for the benefit and sole advantage of the proprietor, so that he may even destroy the thing that he has property in by his use of it, where need requires; but government, being for the preservation of every man's right and property, by preserving him from the violence or injury of others, is for the good of the governed; for the magistrate sword being for a terror to evil doers," and by that terror to enforce men to observe the positive laws of the society, made conformable to the laws of nature, for the public good, that is, the good of every particular member of that society, as far as by common rules it can be provided for, the sword is not given the magistrate for his own good alone.

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93. Children, therefore, as has been showed, by the dependence they have on their parents for subsistence, have a right of inheritance to their father's property, as that which belongs to them for their proper good and behoof, and therefore are fitly termed goods, wherein the first-born has not a sole or peculiar right by any law of God and nature-his and his brethren's being equally founded on that right they had to maintenance, support, and comfort from their parents, and on nothing else. But government, being for the benefit of the governed, and not the sole advantage of the governors (but only for theirs with the rest, as they make a part of that politic body, each of whose parts and members are taken care of, and directed in their peculiar function for the good of the whole by the laws of the society), cannot be inherited by the same title that children have to the goods of their fathers. The right a son has to be maintained and provided with the necessaries and conveniences of life out of his father's stock gives him a right to succeed to his father's "property" for his own good, but this can give him no right to succeed also to the "rule" which his father had over other men; all that a child has right to claim from his father is nourishment and education, and the things nature furnishes for the support of life; but he has no right to demand "rule" or "dominion" from him. He can subsist and receive from him the portion of good things and advantages of education naturally due to him without "empire" and "dominion," that (if his father hath