128

TWO TREATISES OF GOVERNMENT.

66 remove the absurdities and inconveniences of the doctrine of natural freedom," is "to maintain the natural and private dominion of Adam” (O., 222). Conformable hereunto he tells us "the grounds and principles of government necessarily depend upon the original of property" (O., 108). "The subjection of children to their parents is the fountain of all regal authority" (p. 15); and "all power on earth is either derived or usurped from the fatherly power, there being no other original to be found of any power whatsoever" (O., 158). I will not stand here to examine how it can be said without a contradiction that the "First ground and principles of government necessarily depend upon the original of property," and yet "That there is no other original of any power whatsoever but that of the father." It being hard to understand how there can be "no other original" but "fatherhood," and yet that the "grounds and principles of government depend upon the original of property," "property" and "fatherhood" being as far different as lord of a manor and father of children; nor do I see how they will either of them agree with what our author says (O., 244) of God's sentence against Eve (Gen. iii. 16), “That it is the original grant of government." So that, if that were the original, government had not its "original," by our author's own confession, either from property" or "fatherhood ;" and this text, which he brings as a proof of Adam's power over Eve, necessarily contradicts what he says of the "fatherhood," that it is the "sole fountain of all power;" for if Adam had any such regal power over Eve, as our author contends for, it must be by some other title than that of begetting.

74. But I leave him to reconcile these contradictions, as well as many others which may plentifully be found in him by any one who will but read him with a little attention, and shall come now to consider how these two originals of government, “Adam's natural and private dominion," will consist and serve to make out and establish the titles of succeeding monarchs, who, as our author obliges them, must all derive their power from these fountains. Let us then suppose Adam made by God's donation lord and sole proprietor of the whole earth, in as large and ample a manner as Sir Robert could wish, let us suppose him also by right of fatherhood absolute ruler over his children with an un

limited supremacy: I ask them,upon Adam's death what becomes of his "natural" and "private dominion"? and I doubt not it will be answered, that they descended to his next heir, as our author tells us in several places; but that cannot possibly convey both his "natural" and "private dominion" to the same person; for should we allow that all the propriety, all the estate of the father ought to descend to the eldest son, which will need some proof to establish it, and so he have by that title all the "private dominion" of the father, yet the father's" natural dominion," the paternal power, cannot descend to him by inheritance; for being a right that accrues to a man only by "begetting," no man can have this natural dominion over any one he does not "beget," unless it can be supposed that a man can have a right to anything without doing that upon which that right is solely founded. For if a father by "begetting," and no other title, has “natural dominion" over his children, he that does not beget them cannot have this "natural dominion” over them, and therefore be it true or false that our author says (O., 156) that every man that is born, by his very birth, becomes a subject to him that begets him," this necessarily follows-viz. : that a man by his birth cannot become a subject to his brother who did not beget him, unless it can be supposed that a man by the very same title can come to be under the "natural and absolute dominion" of two different men at once, or it be sense to say that a man by birth is under the "natural dominion" of his father only because he begat him, and a man by birth also is under the "natural dominion" of his eldest brother, though he did not beget him.

75. If, then, the "private dominion" of Adam, his property in the creatures, descended at his death all entirely to his eldest son, his heir (for if it did not there is presently an end of all Sir Robert's monarchy and his "natural dominion”) the dominion a father has over his children by begetting them, belonged equally to all his sons who had children by the same title their father had it immediately upon Adam's decease; the sovereignty founded upon "property," and the sovereignty founded upon "fatherhood," come to be divided, since Cain, as heir, had that of " property" alone, Seth and the other sons that of "fatherhood" equally with him. This is the best can be made of our author's doctrine and of the two

E

us.

titles of sovereignty he sets up in Adam, one of them will either signify nothing, or if they both must stand they can serve only to confound the rights of princes, and disorder government in his posterity; for by building upon two titles to dominion, which cannot descend together, and which he allows may be separated, for he yields that " Adam's children had their distinct territories by right of private dominion" (O., 210, p. 40). He makes it perpetually a doubt upon his principles where the sovereignty is, or to whom we owe our obedience, since "fatherhood" and "property" are distinct. titles, and began presently upon Adam's death to be in distinct persons. And which then was to give way to the other? 76. Let us take the account of it as he himself gives it He tells us, out of Grotius, that "Adam's children by donation, assignation, or some kind of cession before he was dead, had their distinct territories by right of private dominion; Abel had his flocks and pastures for them, Cain had his fields for corn and the land of Nod, where he built him a city" (O., 210). Here it is obvious to demand which of these two, after Adam's death, was sovereign. Cain," says our author (p. 23). By what title? "As heir for heirs to progenitors, who were natural parents of their people, are not only lords of their own children, but also of their brethren," says our author (p. 19). What was Cain heir to? Not the entire possessions, not all that which Adam had private dominion" in; for our author allows that Abel, by a title derived from his father, "had his distinct territory for pasture by right of private dominion." What, then, Abel had by "private dominion" was exempt from Cain's dominion, for he could not have "private dominion" over that which was under the private dominion of another, and therefore his sovereignty over his brother is gone with this "private. dominion ;" and so there are presently two sovereigns, and his imaginary title of "fatherhood" is out of doors, and Cain is no prince over his brother, or else if Cain retain his sovereignty over Abel, notwithstanding his "private dominion," it will follow that the "first grounds and principles of government" have nothing to do with property, whatever our author says to the contrary. It is true Abel did not outlive his father Adam, but that makes nothing to the argument, which will hold good against Sir Robert in Abel's issue, or

in Seth, or any of the posterity of Adam not descended from Cain.

77. The same inconvenience he runs into about "the three sons of Noah," who, as he says (p. 15), “had the whole world divided amongst them by their father." I ask, then, in which of the three shall we find "the establishment of regal power" after Noah's death? If in all three, as our author there seems to say, then it will follow that regal power is founded in property of land and follows "private dominion," and not in "paternal power" or “natural dominion ;" and so there is an end of paternal power as the fountain of regal authority, and the so much magnified "fatherhood” quite vanishes. If the "regal power" descended to Shem, as eldest and heir to his father, then "Noah's division of the world by lot to his sons or his ten years' sailing about the Mediterranean to appoint each son his part," which our author tells of (p. 20) was labour lost. His division of the world to them was to ill or to no purpose, for his grant to Cham and Japhet was little worth if Shem, notwithstanding this grant, as soon as Noah was dead was to be lord over them. Or, if this grant of "private dominion” to them over their assigned territories were good, here were set up two distinct sorts of power, not subordinate one to the other, with all those inconveniences which he musters up against the "power of the people” (()., 158) and which I shall set down in his own words, only changing "property" for "people." "All power on earth is either derived or usurped from the fatherly power, there being no other original to be found of any power whatsoever; for if there should be granted two sorts of power, without any subordination of one to the other, they would be in perpetual strife which should be supreme, for two supremes cannot agree. If the fatherly power be supreme, then the power grounded on private dominion must be rubordinate and depend on it, and if the power grounded on property be supreme, then the fatherly power must submit to it and cannot be exercised without the licence of the proprietors, which must quite destroy the frame and course of nature." This is his own arguing against two distinct independent powers, which I have set down in his own words, only putting power rising from property for "power of the people," and when he has answered

what he himself has urged here against two distinct powers, we shall be better able to see how, with any tolerable sense, he can derive all regal authority "from the natural and private dominion of Adam," from "fatherhood" and "property" together, which are distinct titles that do not always meet in the same person, and it is plain by his own confession, presently separated as soon both as Adam's and Noah's death made way for succession, though our author frequently, in his writings, jumbles them together, and omits not to make use of either where he thinks it will sound best to his purpose; but the absurdities of this will more fully appear in the next chapter, where we shall examine the ways of conveyance of the sovereignty of Adam to princes that were to reign after him.

CHAPTER VIII.

Of the Conveyance of Adam's Sovereign Monarchical Power.

78. SIR ROBERT having not been very happy in any proof he brings for the sovereignty of Adam, is not much more fortunate in conveying it to future princes, who, if his politics be true, must all derive their titles from him. The ways he has assigned, as they lie scattered up and down in his writings, I will set down in his own words. In his preface he tells us that "Adam being monarch of the whole world, none of his posterity had any right to possess anything but by his grant or permission, or by succession from him." Here he makes two ways of conveyance of anything Adam stood possessed of, and those are "grant" or "succession." "All kings either are, or are to be, reputed the next heirs to those first progenitors who were at first the natural parents of the whole people" (p. 23). "There cannot be any multitude of men whatsoever but that in it, considered by itself,