by their sense and instinct which He had placed in them to that purpose) to the use of those things which were serviceable for his subsistence, and gave him the means of his "preservation," and therefore I doubt not, but before these words were pronounced (Gen. i. 28, 29), if they must be understood literally to have been spoken, or without any such verbal "donation," man had a right to a use of the creatures by the will and grant cf God; for the desire, strong desire of preserving his life and being having been planted in him as a principle of action by God himself, reason, "which was the voice of God in him,” could not but teach him and assure him that, pursuing that natural inclination he had to preserve his being, he followed the will of his Maker, and therefore had a right to make use of those creatures which by his reason or senses he could discover would be serviceable thereunto, and thus man's "property" in the creatures was founded upon the right he had to make use of those things that were necessary or useful to his being.

87. This being the reason and foundation of Adam's "property," gave the same title, on the same ground, to all his children, not only after his death, but in his lifetime e; so that here was no privilege of his "heir" above his other children which could exclude them from an equal right to the use of the inferior creatures for the comfortable preservation of their beings; which is all the " property" man hath in them; and so Adam's sovereignty built on "property," or, as our author calls it, "private dominion," comes to nothing. Every man had a right to the creatures by the same title Adam had-viz., by the right every one had to take care of and provide for their subsistence, and thus men had 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

the father's grant, but some act of his own. For example, a father, unnaturally careless of his child, sells or gives him to another man, and he, again, exposes him; a third man finding him, breeds up, cherishes, and provides for him as his own. I think in this case nobody will doubt but that the greatest part of filial duty and subjection was here owing, and to be paid to, this foster-father; and if anything could be demanded from him, by either of the other, it could be only due to his natural father, who perhaps might have forfeited his right to much of that duty comprehended in the command, "Honour your parents," but could transfer none of it to another. He that purchased and neglected the child, got, by his purchase and grant of the father, no title to duty or honour from the child, but only he acquired it who, by his own authority, performing the office and care of a father to the forlorn and perishing infant, made himself, by paternal care, a title to proportionable degrees of paternal power. This will be more easily admitted upon consideration of the nature of paternal power, for which I refer my reader to the Second Book.

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101. To return to the argument in hand, this is evident: That paternal power arising only from "begetting" (for in that our author places it alone), can neither be "transferred" nor inherited;" and he that does not beget can no more have paternal power which arises from thence, than he can have a right to anything who performs not the condition to which only it is annexed. If one should ask by what law has a father power over his children, it will be answered, no doubt, by the law of Nature, which gives such a power over them to him that begets them. If one should ask likewise by what law does our author's heir come by a right to inherit, I think it would be answered by the law of Nature too; for I find not that our author brings one word of Scripture to prove the right of such an heir he speaks of. Why, then, the law of Nature gives fathers paternal power over their children because they did "beget" them, and the same law of Nature gives the same paternal power to the heir over his brethren who did not "beget" them, whence it follows that either the father has not his paternal power by begetting, or else that the heir has it not at all. For it is hard to understand how the law of Nature, which is the law of reason, can

give the paternal power to the father over his children for the only reason of "begetting," and to the first-born over his brethren, without this only reason—i.e., for no reason at all. And if the eldest by the law of Nature can inherit this paternal power without the only reason that gives a title to it, so may the youngest as well as he, and a stranger as well as either; for where there is no reason for any one, as there is not but for him that begets, all have an equal title. I am sure our author offers no reason, and when anybody does, we shall see whether it will hold or no.

102. In the mean time, it is as good sense to say that by the law of Nature a man has right to inherit the property of another because he is of kin to him and is known to be of his blood, and therefore by the same law of Nature an utter stranger to his blood has right to inherit his estate, as to say that by the law of Nature he that begets them has paternal power over his children, and therefore by the law of Nature the heir that begets them not has this paternal power over them. Or, supposing the law of the land gave absolute power over their children to such only who nursed them and fed their children themselves, could anybody pretend that this law gave any one who did no such thing absolute power over those who were not his children?

103. When, therefore, it can be showed that conjugal power can belong to him that is not an husband, it will also, I believe, be proved that our author's paternal power acquired by begetting may be inherited by a son, and that a brother as heir to his father's power may have paternal power over his brethren, and by the same rule conjugal power too; but till then, I think we may rest satisfied that the paternal power of Adam, this sovereign authority of "fatherhood," were there any such, could not descend to nor be inherited by, his next heir. "Fatherly power," I easily grant our author, if it will do him any good, can never be lost, because it will be as long in the world as there are fathers; but none of them will have Adam's paternal power, or derive theirs from him, but every one will have his own, by the same title Adam had his-viz., by "begetting," but not by inheritance or succession; no more than husbands have their conjugal power by inheritance from Adam. And thus we see, as Adam had no such " property," no such "paternal power"

as gave him "sovereign" jurisdiction over mankind; so likewise his sovereignty built upon either of these titles, if he had any such, could not have descended to his heir, but must have ended with him. Adam, therefore, as has been proved, being neither monarch, nor his imaginary monarchy hereditable, the power which is now in the world is not that which was Adam's; since all that Adam could have, upon our author's grounds, either of "property" or "fatherhood," necessarily died with him, and could not be conveyed to posterity by inheritance. In the next place we will consider whether Adam had any such heir to inherit his power as our author talks of.

CHAPTER X.

Of the Heir to Monarchical Power of Adam.

104. OUR author tells us (O., 253), "That it is a truth undeniable that there cannot be any multitude of men whatsoever, either great or small, though gathered together from the several corners and remotest regions of the world, but that in the same multitude, considered by itself, there is one man amongst them that in Nature hath a right to be king of all the rest, as being the next heir to Adam and all the other subject to him; every man by nature is a king or a subject.” And again (p. 20), "If Adam himself were still living and now ready to die, it is certain that there is one man, and but one in the world, who is next heir." Let this "multitude of men" be if our author pleases, all the princes upon the earth, there will then be, by our author's rule, one amongst them that in nature hath a right to be king of all the rest, as being the right heir to Adam." An excellent way to establish the titles of princes, and settle the obedience of their subjects, by setting up an hundred or perhaps a thousand titles, if