s 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 was 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, observations 158, 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, there 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 subordinate 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 license 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 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 real 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 Adams 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 sully 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. End of Chapter 7 The 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 that first monarch. 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 grants or succession. Again, he says, 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. Page 19 There cannot be any multitude of men whatsoever, but that in it, considered by itself, there is one man amongst them that in nature have the right to be the king of all the rest, as being the next heir to Adam. Observations 253 Here in these places, inheritance is the only way he allows of conveying monarchical power to princes. In other places, he tells us, Observations 155 All power on earth is either derived or usurped from the fatherly power. Observations 158 All kings that now are or ever were, are or were either fathers of their people, or heirs of such fathers, or usurpers of the right of such fathers. Observations 253 And here he makes inheritance or usurpation the only ways whereby kings come by this original power. But yet he tells us, this fatherly empire, as it was of itself hereditary, so it was alienable by patent, and caesable by usurper. Observations 190 So then here inheritance, grant, or usurpation will convey it. And last of all, which is most admirable, he tells us page 100. It skills not which way kings come by their power, whether by election, donation, succession, or by any other means, for it is still the manner of the government by supreme power that makes them properly kings, and not the means of obtaining their crowns. Which I think is a full answer to all his whole hypothesis and discourse about Adam's royal authority, as the fountain from which all princes were to derive theirs, and he might have spared the trouble of speaking so much as he does up and down of heirs and inheritance, if to make any one, properly a king, needs no more but governing by supreme power, and it matters not by what means he came by it. By this notable way, our author may make Oliver as properly king as any one else he could think of, and had he had the happiness to live under Masonello's government, he could not by this his own rule have forborn to have done homage to him, with O King live forever, since the manner of his government by supreme power made him properly king, who was but the day before properly a fisherman. And if Don Quixote had taught his squire to govern with supreme authority, our author no doubt could have made a most loyal subject in Sancho Panza's island, and he must needs have deserved some preferment in such governments, since I think he is the first politician who, pretending to settle government upon its true basis, and to establish the thrones of lawful princes, ever told the world that he was properly a king whose manner of government was by supreme power by what means so ever he obtained it, which in plain English is to say that regal and supreme power is properly and truly his who can by any means seize upon it, and if this be to be properly a king, I wonder how he came to think of or where he will find, and usurper. This is so strange a doctrine that the surprise of it have made me pass by without their due reflection the contradictions he runs into by making sometimes inheritance alone, sometimes only grant or inheritance, sometimes only inheritance or usurpation, sometimes all these three, and at last election or any other means added to them, the ways whereby Adam's royal authority, that is his right to supreme rule, could be conveyed down to future kings and governors, so as to give them a title to the obedience and subjection of the people. But these contradictions lie so open that the very reading of our author's own words will discover them to any ordinary understanding, and though what I have quoted out of him, with abundance more of the same strain and coherence which might be found in him, might well excuse me from any further trouble in this argument, yet having proposed to myself to examine the main parts of his doctrine, I shall a little more particularly consider how inheritance, grant, usurpation, or election can anyway make out government in the world upon his principles, or derive to any one a right of empire from this regal authority of Adam, had it been never so well proved that he had been an absolute monarch and lord of the whole world. of monarchy by inheritance from Adam how to know the person to whom it belonged to have this power and to exercise this dominion over others. It is in vain then to talk of subjection and obedience without telling us whom we are to obey, for where I never so fully persuaded that there ought to be majesty and rule in the world, yet I am nevertheless at liberty still till it appears who is the person that hath right to my obedience, since if there be no marks to know him by and distinguish him that hath right to rule from other men, it may be myself as well as any other. And therefore, though submission to government be everyone's duty, yet since that signifies nothing but submitting to the direction and laws of such men as have authority to command, it is not enough to make a man a subject to convince him that there is regal power in the world, but there must be ways of designing and knowing the person to whom this regal power of right belongs, and a man can never be obliged in conscience to submit to any power, unless he can be satisfied who is the person who has a right to exercise that power over him. If this were not so, there would be no distinction between pirates and lawful princes. He that has force is without any more ado to be obeyed, and crowns and sceptres would become the inheritance only of violence and rapping. Men, too, might as often and as innocently change their governors as they do their physicians, if the person cannot be known who has a right to direct me and whose prescriptions I am bound to follow. To settle, therefore, men's consciences, under an obligation to obedience, it is necessary that they know not only that there is a power somewhere in the world, but the person who by right is vested with this power over them. How successful our author has been in his attempts to set up a monarchical absolute power in Adam, the reader may judge by what has been already said. But were that absolute monarchy as clear as our author would desire it, as I presume it is on the contrary, yet it could be of no use to the government of mankind now in the world, unless he also make out these two things. First, that this power of Adam was not to end with him, but was upon his decease conveyed in tire to some other person, and so on to posterity. Secondly, that the princes and rulers now on earth are possessed of this power of Adam by a right way of conveyance derived to them. If the first of these fail, the power of Adam where it never so great, never so certain, will signify nothing to the present government and societies in the world, but we must seek out some other original of power for the government as polities than this of Adam, or else there will be none at all in the world. If the latter fail, it will destroy the authority of the present governors and absolve the people from subjection to them, since they, having no better acclaim than others to that power, which is alone the fountain of all authority, can have no title to rule over them. Our author, having fancied an absolute sovereignty in Adam, mentions several ways of its conveyance to princes that were to be his successors, but that which he chiefly insists on is that of inheritance, which occurs so often in his several discourses, and I having in the foregoing chapter quoted several of these passages, I shall not need here again to repeat them. This sovereignty he erects, as has been said upon a double foundation, is that of property and that of fatherhood. One was the right he was supposed to have in all creatures, a right to possess the earth with the beasts and other inferior ranks of things in it, for his private use, exclusive of all other men. The other was the right he was supposed to have to rule and govern men, all the rest of mankind. In both these rights, there being supposed an exclusion of all other men, it must be upon some reason peculiar to Adam that they must both be founded. That of his property are all the supposes to arise from God's immediate donation, Genesis 128, and that of fatherhood from the act of begetting. Now, in all inheritance, if the heir succeed not to the reason upon which his father's right was founded, he cannot succeed to the right which followeth from it. For example, Adam had a right of property in the creatures upon the donation and grant of God Almighty, who was Lord and proprietor of them all. Let this be so as our author tells us. Yet upon his death his heir can have no title to them, no such right of property in them, unless the same reason, vis God's donation, vested a right in the heir too. For if Adam could have had no property in or use of the creatures without this positive donation from God, and this donation were only personally to Adam, his heir could have no right by it. But upon his death it must revert to God, the Lord and owner again. For positive grants give no title farther than the express words convey it, and by which only it is held. And thus, if, as our author himself contends, that donation, Genesis 1.28, were made only to Adam personally, his heir could not succeed to his property in the creatures, and if it were a donation to any but Adam, let it be shown that it was to his heir in our author's sense, i.e. to one of his children exclusive of all the rest. But not to follow our author too far out of the way, the plain of the case is this. God, having made man, and planted in him as in all other animals a strong desire of self-preservation, and furnished the world with things fit for food and raiment and other necessaries of life, subservient to his design that man should live and abide for some time upon the face of the earth, and not that so curious and wonderful a piece of workmanship, by his own negligence or want of necessaries, should perish again presently after a few moments' continuance, God, I say, having made man and the world thus, spoke to him, i.e., directed him by his senses and reason, as he did the inferior animals by their sense and instinct, which were serviceable for his subsistence, and given him as the means of his preservation. And therefore I doubt not, but before these words were pronounced, 1 Genesis 28-29, if they must be understood literally to have been spoken, and without any such verbal donation, man had a right to induce of the creatures by the will and grant of 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 there unto. 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. 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, 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 had in them. And so Adam's sovereignty built on property, or as our also calls it, private dominion, comes to nothing. Every man had a right to the creatures by the same title Adam had, vis 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 in it and possess it. 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 has disposed of it to their 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 have never been asked, nor actually given. And if common tacit consent had established it, it would make but a positive, and not a 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 principles of their nature, being that of self-preservation, that is, the foundation of a right to the creatures for the 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, have 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. 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. 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 have thus ordered the course of nature, a right to be nourished and maintained by their parents. Nay, a right not only to bear subsistence, but to the conveniences and comforts of life, as far as the conditions of their parents can afford it. 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. 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 expenses 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, acknowledgement, respect, and honour that is always due from children to their parents, but of possessions and commodities of life valuable by money. But though it being incumbent on parents to bring up and provide for their children, yet this debt to their children does not quite cancel the score due to their parents, but only is made by nature preferable to it. For the debt a man owes to 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 does not exclude that title. And therefore a man having a right to be maintained by his children where he needs 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 rules 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 politics 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 anyone have a property in them otherwise than in other things common by nature, of which I shall speak in its due place. 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 everyone 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 likes them. But no one could pretend to the whole inheritance, or any sovereignty supposed to accompany it, since a right of inheritance give 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 father's, 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 firstborn, 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 power, and that the inheritance of both rule over men and property in things sprang from the same original and were to descend by the same rules. 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 a property in by his use of it when 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's sword being for a terror to evildoers, 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, i.e. 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. 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 soul or peculiar right by any law of God and nature. The younger children having an equal title with him founded on that right they all have 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 its peculiar functions for the good of the whole, by the laws of society, cannot be inherited by the same title that children have to the goods of their father. 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 any, was vested in him for the good and behoove of others, and therefore the son cannot claim or inherit it by a title which is founded wholly upon his own private good and advantage. We must know how the first ruler from whom any one claims came by his authority, upon what ground any one has empire, what his title is to it, before we can know who has a right to succeed him in it and inherit it from him. If the agreement and consent of men first gave a scepter into any one's hand or put a crown on his head, that also must erect its dissent and conveyance. For the same authority that made the first a lawful ruler must make the second, too, and so give right of succession. In this case inheritance or primogenity can in itself have no right, no pretense to it, any farther than that consent which established the form of the government had so settled the succession. And thus we see the succession of crowns in several countries places it on different heads, and he comes by right of succession to be a prince in one place, who would be a subject in another. If God by his positive grant and revealed declaration first gave rule and dominion to any man, he that will claim by that title must have the same positive grant of God for his succession. For if that has not directed the course of its dissent and conveyance down to others, nobody can succeed to this title of the first ruler. Children have no right of inheritance to this, and primogenity can lay no claim to it, unless God the author of this constitution have so ordained it. Thus we see the pretensions of Saul's family, who received his crown from the immediate appointment of God, ended with his reign, and David by the same title that Saul reigned, vis God's appointment, succeeded in his throne to the exclusion of Jonathan and all pretensions of paternal inheritance. And if Solomon had a right to succeed his father, it must be by some other title than that of primogenity. A cadet or sister's son must have the preference in succession if he has the same title the first lawful prince had, and in dominion that has its foundation only in the positive appointment of God himself, Benjamin the youngest must have the inheritance of the crown if God so direct, as well as one of that tribe had the first possession. If paternal right, the act of begetting, give a man rule and dominion, inheritance or primogenity can give no title, for he that cannot succeed to his father's title, which was begetting, cannot succeed to that power over his brethren which his father had by paternal right over them. But of this I shall have occasion to say more in another place. This is plain in the meantime that in any government, whether supposed to be at first founded in paternal right, consent of the people, or the positive appointment of God himself, which can supersede either of the other and so begin a new government upon a new foundation, I say any government began upon either of these can, by right of succession, come to those only who have the title of him they succeed to. Power founded on contract can descend only to him who has right by that contract. Power founded on begetting he only can have that begets, and power founded on the positive grant or donation of God he only can have by right of succession to whom that grant directs it. From what I have said I think this is clear, that a right to use of the creatures being founded originally in the right a man has to subsist and enjoy the conveniences of life and the natural right children have to inherit the goods of their parents being founded in the right they have to the same subsistence and commodities of life out of the stock of their parents who are therefore taught by natural love and tenderness to provide for them as a part of themselves, and all this being only for the good of the proprietor or heir, it can be no reason for children's inheriting of rule and dominion which has another original and a different end. Nor can primogeniture have any pretense to a right of solely inheriting either property or power as we shall in its due place see more fully. It is enough to have showed here that Adam's property or private dominion could not convey any sovereignty or rule to his heir, who not having a right to inherit all his father's possessions, could not thereby come to have any sovereignty over his brethren, and therefore if any sovereignty on account of his property had been vested in Adam, which in truth there was not, yet it would have died with him. As Adam's sovereignty, if by virtue of being proprietor of the world he had any authority over men, could not have been inherited by any of his children over the rest, because they had the same title to divide the inheritance and every one had a right to a portion of his father's possessions. So neither could Adam's sovereignty by right of fatherhood, if any such he had, descend to any one of his children. For it being in our author's account a right acquired by begetting to rule over those he had begotten, it was not a power possible to be inherited, because the right being consequent to and built on and act perfectly personal made that power so too, and impossible to be inherited. For paternal power being a natural right rising only from the relation of father to son is as impossible to be inherited as the relation itself, and a man may pretend as well to inherit the conjugal power the husband whose heir he is had over his wife, as he can to inherit the paternal power of a father over his children. For the power of the husband being founded on contract, and the power of the father on begetting, he may as well inherit the power obtained by the conjugal contract which was only personal, as he may the power obtained by begetting which could reach no father than the person of the begetter, unless begetting can be a title to power in him that does not beget. Which makes it a reasonable question to ask whether Adam, dying before Eve, his heir, suppose Cain or Seth, should have by right of inheriting Adam's fatherhood, sovereign power over Eve, his mother.  So that the monarchy of the heir would not have taken in Eve, or if it did being nothing but the fatherhood of Adam descended by inheritance, the heir must have right to govern Eve because Adam begot her, for fatherhood is nothing else. Perhaps it will be said with our author that a man can alien his power over his child, and what may be transferred by a compact may be possessed by inheritance. I answer, a father cannot alien the power he has over his child, he may perhaps to some degrees forfeit it, but cannot transfer it, and if any other man acquire it it is not by the father's grant but by some act of 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 the child by either of the other it could be only due to his natural father who perhaps might have forfeit it his right to much of that duty comprehended in the command, honour your parents, but could transfer none of it to another. Eve at 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. 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, then 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 father's 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 the 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 any body does, we shall see whether it holds or no. In the meantime it is as good sense to say that by 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.  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 furthers, 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. Our author tells us, Observations 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 had the right to be king of all the rest, as being the next heir to Adam, and all the other subjects to him, every man by nature is a king or a subject. And again, page 20, if Adam himself was 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 had the right to be king of all the rest, as being the right heir to Adam. An excellent way to establish the thrones of princes and settle the obedience of their subjects, by setting up a hundred or perhaps a thousand titles if there be so many princes in the world against any king now reigning, each as good upon our author's grounds, as his who wears the crown. If this right of heir carry any weight with it, if it be the ordinance of God, as our author seems to tell us, observations two for four, must not all be subject to it, from the highest to the lowest? Can those who wear the names of princes, without having the right of being heirs to Adam, demand obedience from their subjects by this title, and not be bound to pay it by the same law? Either governments in the world are not to be claimed and held by this title of Adam's heir, and then the starting of it is to no purpose. The being or not being Adam's heir signifies nothing as to the title of dominion. Or if it really be, as our author says, the true title to governments and sovereignty, the first thing to be done is to find out this true heir of Adam, seat him in his throne, and then all the kings and princes of the world ought to come and resign up their crowns and sceptres to him, as things that belong no more to them than to any of their subjects. For either this right in nature of Adam's heir, to be king over all the race of men, for altogether they make one multitude, is a right not necessary to the making of a lawful king, and so there may be lawful kings without it, and then king's titles and power depend not on it, or else all the kings in the world but one are not lawful kings, and so have no right to obedience. Either this title of heir to Adam is that whereby kings hold their crowns and have a right to subjection from their subjects, and then one only can have it, and the rest being subjects can require no obedience from other men who are but their fellow subjects, or else it is not the title whereby kings rule and have a right to obedience from their subjects, and then kings are kings without it, and this dream of the natural sovereignty of Adam's heir is of no use to obedience and government, for if kings have a right to dominion and the obedience of their subjects, who are not nor can possibly be heirs to Adam, what use is there of such a title when we are obliged to obey without it? If kings who are not heirs to Adam have no right to sovereignty, we are all free till our author or anybody for him will show us Adam's right heir. If there be but one heir of Adam, there can be but one lawful king in the world, and nobody in conscience can be obliged to obedience till it be resolved who that is, for it may be anyone who is not known to be of a younger house, and all others have equal titles. If there be more than one heir of Adam, everyone is his heir, and so everyone has regal power, for if two sons can be heirs together then all the sons are equally heirs, and so all are heirs being all sons or sons sons of Adam. Betwixt these two the right of heir cannot stand, for by it either but one only man or all men are kings. Take which you please. It dissolves the bonds of government and obedience, since if all men are heirs they can owe obedience to nobody. If only one, nobody can be obliged to pay obedience to him till he be known and his title made out. Please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Philippa. Two Treatises of Civil Government by John Locke. Book 1, Chapter 11. Who Heir. Part 1. The great question which in all ages has disturbed mankind and brought on them the greatest part of those mischiefs which have ruined cities, depopulated countries, and disordered the peace of the world, has been not whether there be power in the world nor whence it came, but who should have it. The settling of this point being of no smaller moment than the security of princes and the peace and welfare of their estates and kingdoms, a reformer of politics one would think, should lay this sure and be very clear in it. For if this remained disputable, all the rest will be to very little purpose, and the skill used in dressing up power with all the splendour and temptation absoluteness can add to it, without showing who has a right to have it, will serve only to give a greater edge to man's natural ambition, which of itself is but too keen. What can this do but set men on them more eagerly to scramble, and so lay a sure and lasting foundation of endless contention and disorder, instead of that peace and tranquility which is the business of government and the end of human society? This designation of the person, our author is more than ordinary obliged to take care of, because he affirming that the assignment of civil power is by divine institution, have made the conveyance as well as the power itself sacred, so that no consideration, no act or art of man, can divert it from that person to whom, by this divine right, it is assigned. No necessity or contrivance can substitute another person in his room, for if the assignment of civil power be by divine institution, and Adam's heir be he to whom it is thus assigned, as in the foregoing chapter our author tells us, it would be as much sacrilege for anyone to be king who was not Adam's heir, as it would have been amongst the Jews for anyone to have been priest who had not been of Aaron's posterity, for not only the priesthood in general being by divine institution, but the assignment of it to the sole line and posterity of Aaron, made it impossible to be enjoyed or exercised by anyone but those persons who were the offspring of Aaron, whose succession therefore was carefully observed, and by that the persons who had a right to the priesthood, certainly known. Let us see, then, what care our author has taken to make us know who is this heir, who by divine institution has a right to be king of all men. The first account of him we meet with is page 12 in these words. This subjection of children, being the fountain of all regal authority, by the ordination of God himself, it follows that civil power, not only in general, is by divine institution, but even the assignment of it, specifically to the eldest parents. Matters of such consequences this is, should be in plain words, as little liable as might be, to doubt or equivocation. And I think if language be capable of expressing anything distinctly and clearly, that of kindred, and the several degrees of nearness of blood, is one. It were therefore to be wished that our author had used a little more intelligible expressions here, that we might have better known who it is, to whom the assignment of civil power is made by divine institution, or at least would have told us what he meant by eldest parents. For I believe if land had been assigned or granted to him and the eldest parents of his family, he would have thought it had needed an interpreter, and it would scarce have been known to whom next it belonged. In propriety of speech, and certainly propriety of speech is necessary in a discourse of this nature, eldest parents signifies either the eldest men and women that have had children, or those who have longest had issue, and then our authors assertion will be that those fathers and mothers who have been longest in the world, or longest fruitful, have, by divine institution, a right to civil power. If there be any absurdity in this, our author must answer for it, and if his meaning be different from my explanation, he is to be blamed that he would not speak it plainly. This, I am sure, parents cannot signify heir's male, nor eldest parents, an infant child, who yet may sometimes be the true heir, if there can be but one. And we are hereby still as much at a loss whose civil power belongs to, notwithstanding this assignment by divine institution, as if there had been no such assignment at all, or our author has said nothing of it. This of eldest parents leaving us more in the dark, who by divine institution has a right to civil power, than those who never heard anything at all of heir, or descent, of which our author is so full. And though the chief matter of his writing be to teach obedience to those who have a right to it, which he tells us is conveyed by descent, yet who those are to whom this right by descent belongs, he leaves like the philosopher's stone in politics, out of the reach of anyone to discover from his writings. This obscurity cannot be imputed a want of language in so great a master of style as Sir Robert is when he is resolved with himself what he would say, and therefore I feel finding how hard it would be to settle rules of descent by divine institution, and how little it would be to his purpose, or conduce to the clearing and establishing the titles of princes, if such rules of descent were settled, he chose rather to contend himself with doubtful and general terms which might make no ill sound in men's ears who were willing to be pleased with them, rather than offer any clear rules of descent of this fatherhood of Adam, by which men's consciences might be satisfied whom it descended, and know the persons who had a right to regal power, and with it to their obedience. How else is it possible that laying so much stress as he does upon descent and Adam's heir, next heir, true heir, he should never tell us what heir means, nor the way to know who the next or true heir is. This, I do not remember, he does anywhere expressly handle. But where it comes in his way, very wearily and doubtfully touches, though it be so necessary that without it all discourses of government and obedience upon his principles would be to no purpose, and fatherly power, never so well made out, will be of no use to anybody. Hence he tells us, observations two for four, that not only the constitution of power in general, but the limitation of it to one kind, i.e. monarchy, and the determination of it to the individual person and line of Adam are all three ordinances of God. Neither Eve nor her children could either limit Adam's power or join others with him, and what was given unto Adam was given in his person to his posterity. Here again our author informs us that the divine ordinance had limited the descent of Adam's monarchical power. To whom? To Adam's line and posterity, says our author, a notable limitation, a limitation to all mankind. For if our author can find any one amongst mankind that is not of the line and posterity of Adam, he may perhaps tell him who this next heir of Adam is. But for us, I despair how this limitation of Adam's empire to his line and posterity will help us to find out one heir. This limitation, indeed, of our author, will save those the labour who would look for him amongst the race of brutes, if any such there were, but will very little contribute to the discovery of one next heir amongst men, though which make a short and easy determination of the question about the descent of Adam's regal power by telling us that the line and posterity of Adam is to have it. That is, in plain English, anyone may have it, since there is no person living that hath not the title of being of the line and posterity of Adam. And while it keeps there, it keeps within our author's limitation by God's ordinance. Indeed, page nineteen, he tells us that such heirs are not only lords of their own children, but of their brethren. Whereby, and by the words following, which we shall consider and on, he seems to insinuate that the eldest son is heir. But he nowhere that I know says it in direct words, but by the instances of Cain and Jacob that there follow, we may allow this to be so far his opinion concerning heirs, that where there are diverse children, the eldest son has the right to be heir. That primogeniture cannot give any title to paternal power we have already showed. That a father may have a natural right to some kind of power over his children is easily granted, but that an elder brother has so over his brethren remains to be proved. God or nature has not anywhere that I know places such jurisdiction in the firstborn, nor can reason find any such natural superiority amongst brethren. The law of Moses gave a double portion of the goods and possessions to the eldest, but we find not anywhere that naturally all by God's institution, superiority or dominion belong to him, and the instances there brought by our author are but slender proofs of a right to civil power and dominion in the firstborn, and do rather show the contrary. His words are in the foresighted place, and therefore we find God told Cain of his brother Abel, his desire shall be subject under thee, and thou shalt rule over him. To which I answer, one, these words of God to Cain are by many interpreters with great reason understood in a quite different sense than what our author uses them in. Two, whatever was meant by them, it could not be that Cain as elder had a natural dominion over Abel for the words are conditional, if thou dost well, and so personal to Cain, and whatever was signified by them did depend on his courage and not follow his birthright, and therefore could by no means be an establishment of dominion in the firstborn in general. For before this, Abel had his distinct territories by right of private dominion, as our author himself confesses, Observations 210, which he could not have had to the prejudice of the heir's title, if by divine institution Cain as heir were to inherit all his father's dominion. Three, if this were intended by God as the charter of primigenity and the grant of dominion to elder brothers in general as such by right of inheritance, we might expect that it should have included all his brethren, for we may well suppose Adam from whom the world was to be peopled had by this time that these were grown up to be men, more sons than these two, whereas Abel himself is not so much as named, and the words in the original can scarce with any good construction be applied to him. Four, it is too much to build a doctrine of so mighty consequence upon so doubtful and obscure a place of scripture, which may be well, may better understood in a quite different sense, and so can be but an ill proof, being as doubtful as the thing to be proved by it, especially when there is nothing else in scripture or reason to be found that favors or supports it. It follows, page 19, accordingly when Jacob bought his brother's birthright, Isaac blessed him thus, be Lord over thy brethren, and let the sons of thy mother bow before thee. Another instance I take it brought by our author to evince dominion due to birthright, and an admirable one it is, for it must be no ordinary way of reasoning in a man that is pleading for the natural power of kings and against all compact, to bring for proof of it an example where his own account of it founds all the right upon compact, and settles empire in the younger brother, unless buying and selling be no compact, for he tells us when Jacob bought his brother's birthright. But, passing by that, let us consider the history itself, with what use our author makes of it, and we shall find these following mistakes about it. One, that our author reports this as if Isaac had given Jacob immediately upon his purchasing the birthright, for he says, when Jacob bought Isaac blessed him, which is plainly otherwise in the scripture, for it appears that there was a distance of time between, and if we will take the story in the order it lies it must be no small distance, all Isaac's sojourning in Gerard and transactions with Abimelech, Genesis 26, coming between, Rebecca being then beautiful and consequently young, but Isaac when he blessed Jacob was old and decrepit, and Esau also complains of Jacob, Genesis 27, 36, that two times he had supplanted him. He took away my birthright, says he, and behold, now he had taken away my blessing, words that I think signify distance of time and difference of action. Two, another mistake of our author's is that he supposes Isaac gave Jacob the blessing and bid him be lord over his brethren because he had the birthright, for our author brings this example to prove that he that has the birthright has thereby a right to be lord over his brethren. But it is also manifest by the text that Isaac had no consideration of Jacob's having bought the birthright, for when he blessed him he considered him not as Jacob, but took him for Esau. Nor did Esau understand any such connection between birthright and the blessing, for he says he has supplanted me these two times. He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing, whereas had the blessing which was to be lord over his brethren, belonged to the birthright. Esau could not have complained of this second as a cheat. Jacob haven't got nothing but what Esau had sold him when he sold him his birthright. So that it is plain, dominion, if these words signify it, was not understood to belong to the birthright. And that in those days of the patriarch's dominion was not understood to be the right of the heir, but only a greater proportion of goods is plain from Genesis 21-10, for Sarah, taking Isaac to be heir, says, cast out this bondwoman and her son, for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, whereby could be meant nothing but that he should not have a pretense to an equal share of his father's estate after his death, which should have his portion presently, and be gone. Accordingly we read, Genesis 25, 5 and 6, that Abraham gave all that he had under Isaac, but unto the sons of the concubines which Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts, and sent them away from Isaac his son while he yet lived. That is, Abraham having given portions to all his other sons and sent them away, that which he had reserved, being the greatest part of his substance, Isaac as heir possessed after his death. But by being heir he had no right to be lured over his brethren, for if he had, why should Sarah endeavour to rob him of one of his subjects, or lessen the number of his slaves, by desiring to have Ishmael sent away? Thus, as under the law, the privilege of birthright was nothing but a double portion, so we see that before Moses in the patriarch's time, from whence our author pretends to take his model, there was no knowledge nor thought that birthright gave rule or empire, paternal or kingly authority to anyone over his brethren. If this be not plain enough in the story of Isaac and Ishmael, he that will look into one chronicles, Chapter 5, Verse 12, may there read these words. Reuben was the firstborn, but for as much as he defiled his father's bed, his birthright was given unto the sons of Joseph, the son of Israel, and the genealogy is not to be reckoned after the birthright, for Judah prevailed above his brethren, and of him came the chief ruler, but the birthright was Joseph's. What this birthright was, Jacob blessing Joseph, Genesis, Chapter 48, Verse 22, telleth us in these words, Moreover, I have given the one portion above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite, with my sword and with my bow. Whereby it is not only plain that the birthright was nothing but a double portion, but the text in chronicles is express against our author's doctrine, and shows that Dominion was no part of the birthright, for it tells us that Joseph had the birthright, but Judah the Dominion. One would think our author were very fond of the very name of birthright, when he brings this instance of Jacob and Esal, to prove that Dominion belongs to the heir over his brethren. One, because it will be but an ill example to prove that Dominion by God's ordination belonged to the eldest son, because Jacob the youngest here had it, let him come by it how he would, for if it prove anything, it can only prove against our author, that the assignment of Dominion to the eldest is not by divine institution, which would then be unalterable, for if by the law of God or nature, absolute power and empire belongs to the eldest son and his heirs, so that they are supreme monarchs and all the rest of their brethren slaves, our author gives us reason to doubt whether the eldest son has a power to part with it, to the prejudice of his posterity, since he tells us Observations 158, that in grants and gifts that have their original from God or nature, no inferior power of man can limit or make any law of prescription against them. Two, because this place, Genesis chapter 27 verse 29, brought by our author, concerns not at all the Dominion of one brother over the other, nor the subjection of Esau to Jacob, for it is plain in the history that Esau was never subject to Jacob, but lived apart in Mount Seir, where he found a distinct people and government, and was himself prince over them, as much as Jacob was in his own family. This text, if considered, can never be understood of Esau himself, or the personal Dominion of Jacob over him, for the words brethren and sons of thy mother, could not be used literally by Isaac, who knew Jacob had only one brother, and these words are so far from being true in a literal sense, or establishing any Dominion in Jacob over Esau, that in the story we find quite the contrary. Four, Genesis 32, Jacob several times calls Esau Lord and himself his servant, and Genesis 33, he bowed himself seven times to the ground to Esau. Whether Esau then were a subject and vassal, nay, as our author tells us, all subjects are slaves to Jacob, and Jacob his sovereign prince by birthright, I leave the reader to judge, and to believe if he can that these words of Isaac be Lord over thy brethren and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee, confirmed Jacob in a sovereignty over Esau upon the account of the birthright he had got from him. He's at read the story of Jacob and Esau will find there was never any jurisdiction or authority that either of them had over the other after their father's death. They lived with the friendship and equality of brethren, neither Lord, neither slave to his brother, but independent each of other, were both heads of their distinct families, where they received no laws from one another, but lived separately, and were the routes out of which sprang two distinct people and a two distinct governments. This blessing then of Isaac, whereon our author would build the dominion of the elder brother, signifies no more but what Rebecca had been told from God, Genesis 25 verse 23, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels, and the one people shall be strong as any other people, and the elder shall serve the younger. And so Jacob blessed Judah, Genesis 49, and gave him the scepter and dominion, from whence our author might have argued as well that jurisdiction and dominion belongs to the third son over his brethren, as well as from this blessing of Isaac that it belonged to Jacob. Both these places contain only predictions of what should long after happen to their posterities, and not any declaration of the right of inheritance to dominion in either. And thus we have our author's two great and only arguments to prove that heirs are lords over their brethren. One, because God tells Cain, Genesis 4, that however sin might set upon him he ought or might be master of it, for the most learned interpreters understood the words of sin and not of able, and give so strong reasons for it that nothing can convincingly be inferred from so doubtful a text to our author's purpose. Two, because in this of Genesis 27, Isaac foretells that the Israelites, the posterity of Jacob, should have dominion over the Edomites, the posterity of Esau. Therefore, says our author, heirs are lords of their brethren. I leave any one to judge of the conclusion. And now we see how our author has provided for the descending and conveyance down of Adam's monarchical power, or personal dominion, to posterity, by the inheritance of his heir succeeding to all his father's authority and becoming upon his death as much lord as his father was, not only over his own children, but over his brethren, and all descended from his father, and so in infinitum. But yet who this heir is, he does not once tell us, and all the light that we have from him in this so fundamental a point is only that in his instance of Jacob, by using the word birthright, as that which passed from Esau to Jacob, he leads us to guess that by heir he means the eldest son, though I do not remember he anywhere mentions expressly the title of the first born, but all along keeps himself under the shelter of the indefinite term heir. But taking it to be his meaning that the eldest son is heir, for if the eldest be not, there will be no pretence why the son should not all be heirs alike. And so by right of primogeniture has dominion over his brethren, this is but one step towards the settlement of succession, and the difficulties remain still as much as ever, till he can show us who is meant by right heir, in all those cases which may happen with a present possessor hath no son. This he silently passes over, and perhaps wisely too, for what can be wiser after one has affirmed that the person having that power as well as the power and form of government is the ordinance of God and by divine institution, vid observations 254 or page 12, than to be careful not to start any question concerning the person, the resolution whereof will certainly lead him into a confession that God and nature hath determined nothing about him. And if our author cannot show who by right of nature or a clear positive law of God has the next right to inherit the dominion of this natural monarch he hath been at such pains about, when he died without a son, he might have spared his pains in all the rest, it being more necessary for the settling men's consciences and determining their subjection and allegiance, to show them who by original right, superior and antecedent to the will or any act of men, hath a title to this paternal jurisdiction, than it is to show that by nature there was such a jurisdiction, it being to no purpose for me to know there is such a paternal power, which I ought and disposed to obey, unless, where there are many pretenders, I also know the person that is rightfully invested and endowed with it. For the main matter in question being concerning the duty of my obedience and the obligation of conscience I am under to pay it to him that is of right to my Lord and Master, I must know the person that this right of paternal power resides in, and so empowers him to claim obedience from me. For let it be true what he says, page 12, that civil power not only in general is by divine institution, but even the assignment of it especially to the eldest parents, and observations 254, that not only the power or right of government, but the form of the power of governing, and the person having that power are all the ordinance of God. Yet unless he show us in all cases who is this person, ordained by God, who is this eldest parent, all his abstract notions of monarchical power will signify just nothing when they are to be reduced to practice and men are conscientiously to pay their obedience. For paternal jurisdiction being not the thing to be obeyed because it cannot command, but is only that which gives one man a right which another hath not, and if it come by inheritance another man cannot have to command and be obeyed, it is ridiculous to say I pay obedience to the paternal power when I obey him to whom paternal power gives no right to my obedience, for he can have no divine right to my obedience who cannot show his divine right to the power of ruling over me, as well as that by divine right there is such a power in the world. And hence not being able to make out any prince's title to government as heir to Adam, which therefore is of no use, and had been better let alone, he is feigned to resolve all into present possession, and makes civil obedience as due to an usurper as to a lawful king, and thereby the usurper's title as good. His words are, Observations 253, and they deserve to be remembered. If an usurper dispossess the true heir, the subject's obedience to the fatherly power must go along and wait upon God's providence. But I shall leave his title of usurpers to be examined in his due place, and desire my sober reader to consider what thanks princes owe such politics as this, which can suppose paternal power, i.e. a right to government, in the hands of a cade or a Cromwell, and so all obedience being due to paternal power, the obedience of subjects will be due to them by the same right and upon as good grounds as it is to lawful princes. And yet this, as dangerous a doctrine as it is, must necessarily follow from making all political power to be nothing else but Adam's paternal power by right and divine institution descending from him without being able to show to whom it descended or who is heir to it. To settle government in the world and to lay obligations to obedience on any man's conscience, it is as necessary, as opposing with our author that all power be nothing but the being possessed of Adam's fatherhood, to satisfy him who has a right to this power, this fatherhood, when the possessor dies without sons to succeed immediately to it, as it was to tell him that upon the death of the father the eldest son had a right to it. For it is still to be remembered that the great question is, and that which our author would be thought to condemn for if he did not sometimes forget it, what persons have a right to be obeyed, and not whether there be a power in the world which is to be called paternal without knowing in whom it resides. For so it be a power, i.e. right to govern, it matters not whether it be termed paternal or regal, natural or acquired, whether you call it supreme fatherhood or supreme brotherhood, will be all one, provided we know who has it. I go on then to ask whether in the inheriting of this paternal power, this supreme fatherhood, the grandson by a daughter had a right before a nephew by a brother. Whether the grandson by the eldest son being an infant, before the younger son a man and able, whether the daughter before the uncle, or any other man descended by a male line, whether a grandson by a younger daughter before a granddaughter by an elder daughter, whether the elder son by a concubine before a younger son by a wife. From whence also will arise many questions of legitimation, and what in nature is the difference between a wife and a concubine? For as to the municipal or positive laws of men, they can signify nothing here. It may father be asked whether the eldest son being a fool shall inherit this paternal power before the younger, a wise man. And what degree of folly it must be that shall exclude him, and who shall be the judge of it?  Who has the paternal power, whilst the widow queen is with child by the deceased king, and nobody knows whether it will be a son or a daughter? Which shall be heir of the two male twins who by the dissection of the mother were laid open to the world? Whether a sister by the half blood before a brother's daughter by the whole blood? These and many more such doubts might be proposed about the titles of succession and the right of inheritance, and that not as idle speculations, but such as in history we shall find have concerned the inheritance of crowns and kingdoms. And if ours want them, we need not go farther for famous examples of it than the other kingdom in this very island, which having been fully related by the ingenious and learned author of Patriarcha non-monarcha, I need say no more of. Till our author hath resolved all the doubts that may arise about the next heir and showed that they are plainly determined by the law of nature or the revealed law of God, all his suppositions of a monarchical absolute supreme paternal power in Adam, and the descent of that power to his heirs would not be of the least use to establish the authority or make out the title of any one prince now on earth, but would rather unsettle and bring all into question? For let our author tell us as long as he pleases, and let all men believe it too, that Adam had a paternal and thereby a monarchical power, that this, the only power in the world, descended to his heirs, and that there is no other power in the world but this. Let all this be as clear demonstration as it is manifest error, yet if it be not past doubt to whom this paternal power descends, and whose now it is, nobody can be under any obligation of obedience, unless any one will say that I am bound to pay obedience to paternal power in a man who has no more paternal power than I myself, which is all one is to say I obey a man because he has a right to govern, and if I be asked how I know he has a right to govern, I should answer it cannot be known that he has any at all. For that cannot be the reason of my obedience which I know not to be so, much less can that be a reason of my obedience which nobody at all can know to be so. And therefore all this ado about Adam's fatherhood, the greatness of his power and the necessity of its supposal helps nothing to establish the power of those that govern or to determine the obedience of subjects who are to obey if they cannot tell whom they are to obey or if it cannot be known who are to govern and who to obey. In the state the world is now it is irrecoverably ignorant who is Adam's heir. This fatherhood, this monarchical power of Adam descending to his heirs would be of no more use to the government of mankind than it would be to the quieting of men's consciences or securing their healths if our author had assured them that Adam had a power to forgive sins or cure diseases which by divine institution descended to his heir whilst this heir is impossible to be known. And should not he do as rationally who upon this assurance of our author went and confessed his sins and expected a good absolution or took physics with expectation of health from anyone who had taken on himself the name of priest or physician or thrust himself into those employments saying, I acquiesce in the absolving power descending from Adam or I shall be cured by the medicinal power descending from Adam as he who says, I submit to and obey the paternal power descending from Adam when it has confessed all these powers descend only to his single heir and that heir is unknown. It is true the civil lawyers have pretended to determine some of these cases concerning the succession of princes but by our author's principles they have meddled in a matter that belongs not to them for if all political power be derived only from Adam and be to descend only to his successive heirs by the ordinance of God and divine institution this is a right antecedent and paramount to all government and therefore the positive laws of men cannot determine that which is itself the foundation of all law and government and is to receive its rule only from the law of God and nature and that being silent in the case I am apt to think there is no such right to be conveyed in this way I am sure it would be to no purpose if there were and men would be more at a loss concerning government and obedience to governors than if there were no such right since by positive laws and compact which divine institution if there be any shuts out all these endless inextricable doubts can be safely provided against but it can never be understood how a divine natural right and that of such moment as is all order and peace in the world should be conveyed down to posterity without any plain natural or divine rule concerning it and there would be an end of all civil government if the assignment of civil power were by divine institution to the heir and yet by that divine institution the person of the heir could not be known this paternal regal power being by divine right only his it leaves no room for human prudence or consent to place it anywhere else for if only one man have a divine right to the obedience of mankind nobody can claim that obedience but he that can show that right nor can men's consciences by any other pretence be obliged to it and thus this doctrine cuts up all government by the roots thus we see how our author laying it for a sure foundation that the very person that is to rule is the ordinance of God and by divine institution tells us at large only that this person is the heir but who this heir is he leaves us to guess and so this divine institution which assigns it to a person whom we have no rule to know is just as good as an assignment to nobody at all but whatever our author does divine institution makes no such ridiculous assignments nor can God be supposed to make it a sacred law that one certain person should have a right to something and yet not give rules to mark out and know that person by or give an heir a divine right to power and yet not point out who that heir is it is rather to be thought that an heir had no such right by divine institution than that God should give such a right to the heir but yet leave it doubtful and undeterminable who such heir is if God had given the land of Canaan to Abraham and in general terms to somebody after him without naming his seed whereby it might be known who that somebody was it would have been as good and useful an assignment to determine the right to the land of Canaan as it would be the determining the right of crowns to give empire to Adam and his successive heirs after him without telling who his heir is for the word heir without a rule to know who it is signifies no more than somebody I know not whom God making it a divine institution that mentioned not to marry those who are near of kin thinks it not enough to say none of usual approach to any that is near of kin to him to uncover their nakedness but moreover gives rules to know who are those near of kin forbidden by divine institution or else that law would have been of no use it being to no purpose delay restraint or give privileges to men in such general terms as the particular person concerned cannot be known by but God's not having anywhere said the next heir shall inherit all his father's estate or dominion we are not to wonder that he had nowhere appointed who that heir should be for never having intended any such thing never designed any heir in that sense we cannot expect he should anywhere nominate or appoint any person to it as we might had it been otherwise and therefore in scripture though the word heir occur yet there is no such thing as heir in our also sense one that was by right of nature to inherit all that his father had exclusive of his brethren hence Sarah supposes that if Ishmael stayed in the house to share in Abraham's estate after his death this son of a bond woman might be heir with Isaac and therefore says she cast out this bond woman and her son for the son of this bond woman shall not be heir with my son but this cannot excuse our author who telling us there is in every number of men one who is right and next heir to Adam ought to have told us what the laws of descent are but he having been so swearing to instruct us by rules how to know who is heir let us see in the next place what his history out of scripture on which he pretends wholly to build his government gives us in this necessary and fundamental point end of chapter 11 part 2 book one chapter 11 part 3 of two treatises of civil government this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Philippa two treatises of civil government by John Locke book one chapter 11 who heir part 3 our author to make good the title of his book page 13 begins his history of the descent of Adam's regal power page 13 in these words this lordship which Adam by command had over the whole world and by right descending from him the patriarchs did enjoy was a large etc how does he prove that the patriarchs by descent did enjoy it for dominion of life and death says he we find Judah the father pronounced sentence of death against Tamar his daughter-in-law for playing the harlot page 13 how does this prove that Judah had absolute and sovereign authority he pronounced sentence of death the pronouncing of sentence of death is not a certain mark of sovereignty but usually the office of inferior magistrates the power of making laws of life and death is indeed a mark of sovereignty but pronouncing the sentence according to those laws may be done by others and therefore this will but ill prove that he had sovereign authority as if one should say judge jeffries pronounced sentence of death in the late times therefore judge jeffries had sovereign authority but it will be said Judah did it not by commission from another and therefore did it in his own right who knows whether he had any right at all heat of passion might carry him to do that which he had no authority to do Judah had dominion of life and death how does that appear he exercised it he pronounced sentence of death against Tamar our author thinks it a very good proof that because he did it therefore he had a right to do it he lay with her also by the same way of proof he had a right to do that too if the consequence be good from doing to a right of doing Absalom too may be reckoned amongst our authors sovereigns for he pronounced such a sentence of death against his brother Amnon and mount upon a like occasion and had it executed too if that be sufficient to prove a dominion of life and death but allowing this all to be clear demonstration of sovereign power who was it that had this lordship by right descending to him from Adam as large and ample as the absolutist dominion of any monarch Judah says our author Judah a younger son of Jacob his father and elder brethren living so that if our authors own proof be to be taken a younger brother may in the life of his father and elder brothers by right of descent enjoy Adam's monarchical power and if one so qualified may be monarch by descent why may not every man if Judah his father and elder brother living were one of Adam's heirs I know not who can be excluded from this inheritance all men by inheritance may be monarchs as well as Judah touching war we see that Abraham commanded an army of 318 soldiers of his own family and Esau met his brother Jacob with 400 men at arms for matter of peace Abraham made a league with Abimelech etc. page 13 is it not possible for a man to have 318 men in his family without being heir to Adam a planter in the West Indies has more and might if he pleased who doubts muster them up and lead them out against the Indians to seek reparation upon any injury received from them and this without the absolute dominion of a monarch descending to him from Adam would it not be an admirable argument to prove that all power by God's institution descended from Adam by inheritance and that the very person and power of this planter with the ordinance of God because he had power in his family over servants born in his house and bought with his money for this was just Abraham's case those who were rich in the patriarch's days as in the West Indies now bought men and made servants and by their increase as well as purchasing of new came to have large and numerous families which though they made use of in war or peace can it be thoughts the power they had over them was an inheritance descended from Adam when it was the purchase of their money a man's riding in an expedition against an enemy his horse bought in a fair would be as good a proof that the owner enjoyed the lordship which Adam by command had over the whole world by right descending to him as Abraham's leading out the servants of his family is that the patriarchs enjoyed this lordship by descent from Adam since the title to the power the master had in both cases whether over slaves or horses was only from his purchase and the getting a dominion over anything by bargain and money is a new way of proving one had it by descent and inheritance but making war and peace are marks of sovereignty let it be so in politics societies may not therefore a man in the West Indies who had with him sons of his own friends or companions soldiers under pay or slaves bought with money or perhaps a band made up of all these make war and peace if there should be occasion and ratify the articles too within oath without being a sovereign an absolute king over those who went with him he that says he cannot must then allow many masters of ships many private planters to be absolute monics for as much as this they have done war and peace cannot be made for politics societies but by the supreme power of such societies because war and peace giving a different motion to the force of such a politic body none can make war or peace but that which has the direction of the force of the whole body and that in politics societies is only the supreme power in voluntary societies for the time he that has such a power by consent may make war and peace and so may a single man for himself the state of war not consisting in the number of partisans but the enmity of the parties where they have no superior to appeal to the actual making of war or peace is no proof of any other power but only of disposing those to exercise or cease acts of enmity for whom he makes it and this power in many cases anyone may have without any politics supremacy and therefore the making of war or peace will not prove that everyone that does so is a politic ruler much less a king for then common wealths must be kings too for they do us certainly make war and peace as monarchical government but granting this a mark of sovereignty in Abraham is it a proof of the descent to him of Adam's sovereignty over the whole world if it be it will surely be as good a proof of the descent of Adam's lordship to others too and then common wealths as well as Abraham will be heirs of Adam for they make war and peace as well as he if you say that the lordship of Adam does not by right descent to common wealths though they make war and peace the same say I of Abraham and then there is an end of your argument if you stand to your argument and say those that do make war and peace as common wealths do without doubt do inherit Adam's lordship there is an end of your monarchy unless you will say that common wealths by descent enjoying Adam's lordship are monarchies and that indeed would be a new way of making all the governments in the world monarchical to give our author the honor of this new invention for I confess it is not I have first found it out by tracing his principles and so charged it on him it is fit my readers know that as absurd as it may seem he teaches it himself page 23 where he ingeniously says in all kingdoms and common wealths in the world whether the prince be the supreme father of the people or but the true heir to such a father or come to the crown by usurpation or election or whether some few or a multitude govern the common wealth yet still the authority that is in any one or in many or in all these is the only right and natural authority of a supreme father which right of fatherhood he often tells us is regal and royal authority as particularly page 12 the page immediately preceding this instance of Abraham this regal authority he says those that govern common wealths have and if we true that regal and royal authority be in those that govern common wealths it is as true that common wealths are governed by kings for if regal authority be in him that governs he that governs must needs be a king and so all common wealths are nothing but downright monarchies and then what need any more a deal about the matter the governments of the world are as they should be there is nothing but monarchy in it this without doubt was the surest way our author could have found to turn all other governments but monarchical out of the world but all this scarce proves Abraham to have been a king as heir to Adam if by inheritance he had been king lot who was of the same family must needs have been his subject by that title before the servants in his family but we see they lived as friends and equals and when their herdsmen could not agree there was no pretense of jurisdiction or superiority between them but they parted by consent Genesis 13 hence he is called both by Abraham and by the text Abraham's brother the name of friendship and equality and not of jurisdiction and authority though he were really but his nephew and if our author knows that Abraham was Adam's heir and a king it was more it seems than Abraham himself knew or his servant whom he sent a wooing for his son for when he sets out the advantages of the match 24 Genesis 35 thereby to prevail with the young woman and her friends he says I am Abraham's servant and the Lord has blessed my master greatly and he has become great and he has given him flocks and herds in silver and gold and men servants and maid servants and camels and asses and Sarah my master's wife bear a son to my master when she was old and under him have he given all he has can one think that a discreet servant that was thus particular to set out his master's greatness would have omitted the crown Isaac was to have if he had known of any such can it be imagined he should have neglected to have told them on such an occasion as this that Abraham was a king a name well known at that time for he had nine of them his neighbors if he or his master had thought any such thing the likeliest matter of all the rest to make his errand successful but this discovery it seems was reserved for our author to make two or three thousand years after and let him enjoy the credit of it only he should have taken care that some of Adam's land should have descended to this his heir as well as all Adam's lordship for though this lordship which Abraham if we may believe our author as well as the other patriarchs by right descending to him did enjoy was as large and ample as the absolutist dominion of any monarch which has been since the creation yet his estate his territories his dominions were very narrow and scanty for he had not the possession of a foot of land till he bought a field and a cave of the Sons of Heth to bury Sarah in the instance of Esau joined with this of Abraham to prove that the lordship which Adam had over the whole world by right descending from him the patriarchs did enjoy is yet more pleasant than the former Esau met his brother Jacob with four hundred men at arms he therefore was a king by right of air to Adam four hundred armed men then however got together are enough to prove him that leads them to be a king and Adam's heir there have been Tories in Ireland whatever there are in other countries who would have thanked our author for so honorable an opinion of them especially if there have been nobody near with a better title of five hundred armed men to question their royal authority of four hundred it is a shame for men to trifle so to say no worse of it in so serious an argument here Esau is brought as a proof that Adam's lordship Adam's absolute dominion as large as that of any monarch descended by right to the patriarchs and in this very chapter page 19 Jacob is brought as an instance of one that by birthright was lord over his brethren so we have here two brothers absolute monarchs by the same title and at the same time heirs to Adam the eldest heir to Adam because he met his brother with four hundred men and the youngest heir to Adam by birthright Esau enjoyed the lordship which Adam had over the whole world by right descending to him in as large and ample manner as the absolutist dominion of any monarch and at the same time Jacob lord over him by the right heirs have to be lords over their brethren resum teniatis I never I confess met with any man of parts so dexterous as Sir Robert at this way of arguing but it was his misfortune to light upon a hypothesis that could not be accommodated to the nature of things and human affairs his principles could not be made to agree with that constitution and order which God had settled in the world and therefore must needs often clash with common sense and experience in the next section he tells us this patriarchal power continued not only till the flood but after it as the name patriarch does in part prove the word patriarch does more than in part prove that patriarchal power continued in the world as long as they were patriarchs for it is necessary that patriarchal power should be whilst there are patriarchs as it is necessary that there should be paternal or conjugal power whilst there are fathers or husbands but this is but playing with names that which he would fallaciously insinuate is the thing in question to be proved this that the lordship which Adam had over the world the supposed absolute universal dominion of Adam by right descending from him the patriarchs did enjoy if he affirms such an absolute monarchy continued to the flood in the world I would be glad to know what record he has it from for I confess I cannot find a word of it in my Bible if by patriarchal power he means anything else it is nothing to the matter in hand and how the name patriarch in some part proves that those who are called by that name had absolute monarchical power I confess I do not see and therefore I think needs no answer till the argument from it be made out a little clearer the three sons of Noah had the world says our author divided amongst them by their father for of them was the whole world overspread page 14 the world might be overspread by the offspring of Noah's sons though he never divided the world amongst them for the earth might be replenished without being divided so that all our authors argument here proves no such division however I allow it to him and then ask the world being divided amongst them which of the three was Adam's heir if Adam's lordship Adams monarchy by right descended only to the eldest then the other two could be but his subjects his slaves if by right it descended to all three brothers by the same right it will descend to all mankind and then it will be impossible what he says page 19 that heirs are lords of their brethren should be true but all brothers and consequently all men will be equal and independent all heirs to Adams monarchy and consequently all Monarchs too one as much as another but it will be said Noah their father divided the world amongst them so that our author will allow more to Noah than he will to God Almighty for observations to one one he thought it hard that God himself should give the world to Noah and his sons to the prejudice of Noah's birthright his words are Noah was left sole heir to the world why should it be thought that God would disinherit him out of his birthright and make him of all men in the world the only tenant in common with his children and yet here he thinks it fit that Noah should disinherit shame of his birthright and divide the world between him and his brethren so that this birthright when our author pleases must and when he pleases must not be sacred and inviolable if Noah did divide the world between his sons and his assignment of dominions to them were good there is an end of divine institution all our author's discourse of Adam's heir with whatsoever he builds on it is quite out of doors the natural power of kings falls to the ground and then the form of the power governing and the person having that power will not be as he says they are observations to five four the ordinance of God but there will be ordinances of man for if the right of the air be the ordinance of God a divine right no man father or not father can alter it if it be not a divine right it is only human depending on the will of man and so where human institution gives it not the firstborn has no right at all above his brethren and men may put government into what hands and under what form they please he goes on most of the civilist nations of the earth labor to fetch their original from some of the sons or nephews of Noah page 14 how many do most of the civilist nations amount to and who are they I fear the chineses are very great and civil people as well as several other people of the east west north and south trouble not themselves much about this matter all that believe the bible which I believe are our authors most of the civilist nations must necessarily derive themselves from Noah but for the rest of the world they think little of his sons or nephews but if the heralds and antiquaries of all nations for it is these men generally that labor to find out the originals of nations or all the nations themselves should labor to fetch their original from some of the sons or nephews of Noah what would this be to prove that the lordship which Adam had over the whole world by right to send it to the patriarchs whoever nations or races of men labor to fetch their original from maybe concluded to be thought by them men of renown famous to posterity for the greatness of the virtues and actions but beyond these they look not nor consider who they were heirs to but look on them as such as raised themselves by their own virtue to a degree that would give a luster to those who in future ages could pretend to derive themselves from them but if it were oligies hercules brahma tambolin pheromon they if Jupiter and Saturn were the names from whence diverse races of men both ancient and modern have laboured to derive their original will that prove that those men enjoyed the lordship of Adam by right descending to them if not this is but a flourish of our authors to mislead his reader that in itself signifies nothing to as much purpose is what he tells us page 15 concerning this division of the world that some say it was by lot and others that Noah sailed round the Mediterranean in ten years and divided the world into Asia, Africa and Europe portions of his three sons America then it seems was left to be his that could catch it why our author takes such pains to prove the division of the world by Noah to his sons and will not leave out an imagination though no better than a dream that he can find anywhere to favour it is hard to guess since such a division if it prove anything must necessarily take away the title of Adam's heir unless three brothers can all together be heirs of Adam and therefore the following words how so ever the manner of this division be uncertain yet it is most certain the division itself was by families from Noah and his children of which the parents were heads and princes page 15 if allowed him to be true and of any force to prove that all the power in the world is nothing but the lordship of Adams descending by right they will only prove that the fathers of the children are all heirs to this lordship of Adam for if in those days Ham and Jaffet and other parents besides the eldest son were heads and princes over their families and had a right to divide the earth by families what hinders younger brothers being fathers of families from having the same right if Ham and Jaffet were princes by right descending to them notwithstanding any title of heir in their eldest brother younger brothers by the same right descending to them our princes now and so all our alters natural power of kings will reach no farther than their own children and no kingdom by this natural right can be bigger than a family for either this lordship of Adam over the whole world by right descends only to the eldest son and then there can be but one heir as our alter says page 19 or else it by right descends to all the sons equally and then every father of a family will have it as well as the three sons of Noah take which you will it destroys the present governments and kingdoms that are now in the world since whoever has this natural power of a king by right descending to him must have it either as our alter tells us Cain had it and be lord over his brethren and so be alone king of the whole world or else as he tells us here share my ham and jaffet had it three brothers and so be only prince of his own family and all families independent one of another all the world must be only one empire by the right of the next air or else every family be a distinct government of itself by the lordship of Adams descending to parents of families and to this only tend all the proofs he here gives us of the descent of Adams lordship for continuing his story of this descent he says in the dispersion of Babel we must certainly find the establishment of royal power throughout the kingdoms of the world page 14 if you must find it pray do and you will help us to a new piece of history but you must show it us before we shall be bound to believe that regal power was established in the world upon your principles for that regal power was established in the kingdoms of the world I think nobody will dispute but that there should be kingdoms in the world who several kings enjoyed their crowns by right descending to them from Adam that we think not only apocryphal but also utterly impossible if our author has no better foundation for his monarchy than a supposition of what was known at the dispersion of Babel the monarchy he erects thereon whose top is to reach to heaven to unite mankind will serve only to divide and scatter them as that tower did and instead of establishing civil government and order in the world will produce nothing but confusion for he tells us the nations that they were divided into were distinct families which had fathers for rulers over them whereby it appears that even in the confusion God was careful to preserve the fatherly authority by distributing the diversity of languages according to the diversity of families page 14 it would have been a hard matter for anyone but our author to have found out so plainly in the text he here brings that all the nations in that dispersion were governed by fathers and that God was careful to preserve the fatherly authority the words of the text these are the sons of shem after their families after their tongues in their lands after their nations and the same thing is said of ham and shafed after an enumeration of their posterities in all which there is not one word said of their governors or forms of government of fathers or fatherly authority but our author who is very quick cited to spy out fatherhood where nobody else could see any of the least glimpses of it tells us positively their rulers were fathers and God was careful to preserve the fatherly authority and why because those of the same family spoke the same language and so of necessity in the division kept together just as if one should argue thus Hannibal in his army consisting of diverse nations kept those of the same language together therefore fathers were captains of each band and Hannibal was careful of the fatherly authority or in peopleing of carolina the english french scotch and welsh that are there plant themselves together and by them the country is divided in their lands after their tongues after their families after their nations therefore care was taken of the fatherly authority or because in many parts of america every little tribe was a distinct people with a different language one should infer that therefore God was careful to preserve the fatherly authority or that therefore their rulers enjoyed Adam's lordship by right descending to them though we know not who were their governors nor what their form of government but only that they were divided into little independent societies speaking different languages the scripture says not a word of their rulers or forms of government but only gives an account how mankind came to be divided into distinct languages and nations and therefore it is not to argue from the authority of scripture to tell us positively fathers were their rulers when the scripture says no such thing but to set up fancies of one's own brain when we confidently have a matter of fact where records are utterly silent upon a like ground i.e. none at all he says that they were not confused multitudes without heads and governors and at liberty to choose what governors or governments they pleased for i demand when mankind were all yet of one language all congregated in the plane of shinar were they then all under one monarch who enjoyed the lordship of adam by right descending to him if they were not there were then no thoughts it is plain of adam's air no right to government known then upon that title no care taken by god or man of adam's fatherly authority if when mankind were but one people dwelt all together and were of one language and were upon building a city together and when it was plain that they could not but know the right air for shem lived till isaac's time and long while after the division at babel if then i say they were not under the monarchical government of adam's fatherhood by right descending to the air it is plain there was no regard had to the fatherhood no monarchy acknowledged due to adam's air no empire of shems in asia and consequently no such division of the world by know as our authors talked of as far as we can conclude anything from scripture in this matter it seems from this place that if they had any government it was rather a commonwealth than an absolute monarchy for the scripture tells us genesis 11 they said it was not a prince commanded the building of this city and tower it was not by the command of one monarch but by the consultation of many a free people let us build us a city they built it for themselves as free men not as slaves for their lord and master that we be not scattered abroad having a city once built and fixed habitations to settle our abodes and families this was the consultation and design of a people that were at liberty to pass asunder but desired to keep in one body and could not have been either necessary or likely in men tied together under the government of one monarch who if they had been as our author tells us all slaves under the absolute dominion of a monarch needed not have taken such care to hinder themselves from wandering out of the reach of his dominion a demand whether this be not plainer in scripture than anything of adam's air or salvely authority but if being as god says genesis 11 6 one people they had one ruler one king by natural right absolute and supreme over them what care had god to preserve the paternal authority of the supreme fatherhood if on a sudden he suffer 72 for so many are also talks of distinct nations to be erected out of it under distinct governors and at once to withdraw themselves from the obedience of their sovereign this is to entitle god's care how and to what we please can it be sense to say that god was careful to preserve the fatherly authority in those who had it not for if these were subjects under a supreme prince what authority had they was it an instance of god's care to preserve the fatherly authority when he took away the true supreme fatherhood of the natural monarch can it be reason to say that god for the preservation of fatherly authority let several new governments with their governors start up who could not all have fatherly authority and is it not as much reason to say that god is careful to destroy fatherly authority when he suffers one who is in possession of it to have his government torn in pieces and shared by several of his subjects would it not be an argument just like this for monarchical government to say when any monarchy was shattered to pieces and divided amongst revolted subjects that god was careful to preserve monarchical power by rending a settled empire into a multitude of little governments if anyone will say that what happens in providence to be preserved god is careful to preserve as a thing therefore to be esteemed by men as necessary or useful it is a peculiar propriety of speech which everyone will not think fit to imitate but this I'm sure is impossible to be either proper or true speaking that shem for example for he was then alive should have fatherly authority or sovereignty by right of fatherhood over that one people at babel and that the next moment shem yet living seventy two others should have fatherly authority or sovereignty by right of fatherhood over the same people divided into so many distinct governments either these seventy two fathers actually were rulers just before the confusion and then they were not one people but that got himself as they were or else they were a common wealth and then where was monarchy or else these seventy two fathers had fatherly authority but knew it not strange that fatherly authority should be the only original of government amongst men and yet all mankind not know it and stranger yet that the confusion of tongues should reveal it to them all of a sudden and in an instant these seventy two should know that they had fatherly power and all others know that they were to obey it in them and everyone know that particular fatherly authority to which he was a subject he that can think this arguing from scripture may from thence make out what model of a utopia will best suit with his fancy or interest and this fatherhood thus disposed of will justify both the prince who claims an universal monarchy and his subjects who being fathers of families shall quit all subjection to him and count on his empire into less governments for themselves for it will always remain a doubt in which of these the fatherly authority resided till our author resolves us whether Shem who was then alive or these seventy two new princes beginning so many new empires in his dominions and over his subjects had right to govern since our author tells us that both one and the other had fatherly which is supreme authority and are brought in by him as instances of those who did enjoy the lordship of Adam by right descending to them which was as large and ample as the absolutist dominion of any monarchy this at least is unavoidable that if God was careful to preserve the fatherly authority in the seventy two new erected nations it necessarily follows that he was as careful to destroy all pretenses of Adam's air since he took care and therefore did preserve the fatherly authority in so many at least seventy one that could not possibly be Adam's airs when the right air if God had ever ordained any such inheritance could not but be known Shem then living and they being all one people end of chapter 11 part 3 book 1 chapter 11 part 4 of two treatises of civil government this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Philippa two treatises of civil government by John Locke book 1 chapter 11 who air part 4 Nimrod is his next instance of enjoying this patriarchal power page 16 but I know not for what reason our author seems a little unkind to him and says that he against right enlarged his empire by seizing violently on the rights of other lords of families these lords of families here were called fathers of families in his account of the dispersion at Babel but it matters not how they were called so we know who they are for this fatherly authority must be in them either as airs to Adam and so they could not be 72 nor above one at once or else as natural parents over their children and so every father will have paternal authority of his children by the same right and in as large extent as those 72 had and so be independent princes over their own offspring taking his lords of families in this later sense as it is hard to give those words any other sense in this place he gives us a very pretty account of the original of monarchy and in these following words page 16 and in this sense he may be said to be the author and founder of monarchy of his as against right seizing violently on the rights of fathers over their children which paternal authority if it be in them by right of nature for how else could those 72 come by it nobody can take from them without their own consents and then I desire our author and his friends to consider how far this will concern other princes and whether it will not according to his conclusion of that paragraph resolve all regal power of those whose dominions extend beyond their families either inter tyranny and usurpation or election and consent of fathers of families which will differ very little from consent of the people all his instances in the next section page 17 of the 12 dukes of Edom the nine kings in a little corner of Asia in Abraham's days the 31 kings in Canaan destroyed by Joshua and the care he takes to prove that these were all sovereign princes and that every town in those days had a king are so many direct proofs against him that it was not the lordship of Adam by right descending to them that made kings for if they had held their royalties by that title either there must have been but one sovereign over them all or else every father of a family had been as good a prince and had as good a claim to royalty as these for if all the sons of Esau had each of them the younger as well as the eldest the right of fatherhood and so were sovereign princes after their father's death the same right had their sons after them and so on to all posterity which will limit all the natural power of fatherhood only to be over the issue of their own bodies and their descendants which power of fatherhood dies with the head of each family and makes way for the like power of fatherhood to take place in each of his sons over their respective posterities whereby the power of fatherhood will be preserved indeed and is intelligible but will not be at all to our author's purpose none of the instances he brings are proof of any power they had as heirs of Adam's paternal authority by the title of his fatherhood descending to them no nor of any power they had by virtue of their own for Adam's fatherhood being of all mankind it could descend but to one at once and from him to his right heir only and so they could by that title be but one king in the world at his time and by right of fatherhood not descending from Adam it must be only as they themselves were fathers and so could be over none but their own posterity so that if those twelve dukes of Edom if Abraham and the nine kings his neighbours if Jacob and Esau and the thirty-one kings in Canaan the seventy-two kings mutilated by Adonibesec the thirty-two kings that came to Ben Haddad the seventy kings of Greece making war at Troy were as our author contends all of them sovereign princes it is evident that kings derived their power from some other original than fatherhood since some of these had power over more than their own posterity and it is demonstration that they could not be all heirs to Adam for I challenge any man to make pretence to power by right of fatherhood either intelligible or possible in anyone otherwise than either as Adam's heir or as progenitor over his own descendants naturally sprung from him and if I also could show that any one of these princes of which he gives us his whole larger catalogue had his authority by either of these titles I think I might yield him the cause though it is manifest they are all impertinent and directly contrary to what he brings them to prove vis that the lordship which Adam had over the world by right descended to the patriarchs having told us page 16 that the patriarchal government continued in Abraham Isaac and Jacob until the Egyptian bondage page 17 he tells us by manifest footsteps we may trace this paternal government unto the Israelites coming into Egypt where the exercise of supreme patriarchal government was intermitted because they were in subjection to a stronger prince what these footsteps are of paternal government in our also sense i.e. of absolute monarchical power descending from Adam and exercised by right of fatherhood we have seen that is for 2290 years no footsteps at all since in all that time he cannot produce any one example of any person who claimed or exercised regal authority by right of fatherhood or show anyone who being a king was Adam's heir all that his proof amount to is only this that there were fathers patriarchs and kings in that age of the world but that the fathers and patriarchs had any absolute arbitrary power or by what titles those kings had theirs and of what extent it was the scripture is wholly silent it is manifest by right of fatherhood they neither did nor could claim any title to dominion and empire to say that the exercise of supreme patriarchal government was intermitted because they were in subjection to a stronger prince proves nothing but what i before suspected this that patriarchal jurisdiction or government is a fallacious expression and does not in our author signify what he would yet insinuate by it paternal and regal power such an absolute sovereignty as he supposes was in Adam for how can he say that patriarchal jurisdiction was intermitted in Egypt where there was a king under whose regal government the Israelites were if patriarchal were absolute monarchical jurisdiction and if it were not but something else why does he make such a do about a power not in question and nothing to the purpose the exercise of patriarchal jurisdiction if patriarchal be regal was not intermitted whilst the Israelites were in Egypt it is true the exercise of regal power was not then in the hands of any of the promised seed of Abraham nor before neither that i know but what is that the intermission of regal authority as descending from Adam unless our author will have it that this chosen line of Abraham had the right of inheritance to Adam's lordship and then to what purpose are his instances of the 72 rulers in whom the fatherly authority was preserved in the confusion at Babel why does he bring the twelve princes sons of Ishmael and the dukes of Edom and join them with Abraham Isaac and Jacob as examples of the exercise of true patriarchal government if the exercise of patriarchal jurisdiction were intermitted in the world whenever the heirs of Jacob had not supreme power i fear supreme patriarchal jurisdiction was not only intermitted but from the time of the Egyptian bondage quite lost in the world since it will be hard to find from that time downwards anyone who exercised it as an inheritance descending to him from the patriarchs Abraham Isaac and Jacob i imagined monarchical government would have served his turn in the hands of Pharaoh or anybody but one cannot easily discover in all places what his discourse tends to as particularly in this place it is not obvious to guess what he drives that when he says the exercise of supreme patriarchal jurisdiction in Egypt or how this serves to make out the descent of Adam's lordship to the patriarchs or anybody else for i thought he had been giving us out of scripture proofs and examples of monarchical government founded on paternal authority descending from Adam and not a history of the Jews amongst whom yet we find no kings till many years after they were a people and when kings were their rulers there is not the least mention or room for a pretence that they were heirs to Adam or kings by paternal authority i expected talking so much as he does of scripture that he would have produced then to series of monarchs whose titles were clear to Adam's fatherhood and who as heirs to him owned and exercised paternal jurisdiction over their subjects and that this was the true patriarchal government whereas he neither proves that the patriarchs were kings nor that either kings or patriarchs were heirs to Adam or so much as pretended to it and one may as well prove that the patriarchs were all absolute monarchs but the power both of patriarchs and kings was only paternal and that this power descended to them from Adam i say all these propositions may be as well proved by a confused account of a multitude of little kings in the west indies out of Ferdinand of Soto or any of our late histories of the northern america all by our authors 70 kings of Greece out of Homer as by anything he brings out of scripture in that multitude of kings he has reckoned up and me thinks he should have let Homer and his wars of Troy alone since his great zeal to truth or monarchy carried him to such a pitch of transport against philosophers and poets that he tells us in his preface that there are too many in these days who please themselves in running after the opinions of philosophers and poets to find out such an original of government as might promise them some title to liberty to the great scandal of christianity and bringing in of atheism and yet these heathens philosopher Aristotle and poet Homer are not rejected by our zealous christian politician whenever they offer anything that seems to serve his turn whether to the great scandal of christianity and bringing in of atheism let him look this i cannot but observe in authors who it is visible write not for truth how ready zeal for interest and party is to entitle christianity to their designs and to charge atheism on those who will not without examining submit to their doctrines and blindly swallow their nonsense but to return to his scripture history our author father tells us page 18 that after the return of the israelites out of bondage god out of a special care of them chose moses and joshua successively to govern as princes in the place instead of the supreme fathers if it be true that they returned out of bondage it must be into a state of freedom and must imply that both before and after this bondage they were free unless our author will say that changing of masters is returning out of bondage or that a slave returns out of bondage when he is removed from one galley to another if then they returned out of bondage it is plain that in those days whatever our author in his preface says to the contrary there were difference between a son a subject and a slave and that neither the patriarchs before nor their rulers after this egyptian bondage numbered their sons or subjects amongst their possessions and disposed of them with as absolute a dominion as they did their other goods this is evident in jacob to whom ruben offered his two sons as pledges and judo was at last sure as he for benjamin's safe return out of egypt which had all been vain superfluous and but a sort of mockery if jacob had had the same power over every one of his family as he had over his ox or his ass as an owner over his substance and the offers that ruben or judo made had been such a security for returning of benjamin as if a man should take two lambs out of his lord's flock and offer one a security that he will safely restore the other when they were out of this bondage what then god out of a special care of them the israelites it is well that once in his book he will allow god to have any care of the people for in other places he speaks as mankind as if god had no care of any part of them but only of their monarchs and at the rest of the people the societies of men were made as so many herds of cattle only for the service use and pleasure of their princes chose moses and joshua successively to govern as princes a shrewd argument our author has found out to prove god's care of the fatherly authority and adam's heirs that here as an expression of his care of his own people he chooses those for princes over them that had not the least pretense to either the person's chosen were moses of the tribe of levi and joshua of the tribe of effray neither of which had any title to fatherhood but says our author they were in the place and stead of the supreme fathers if god had anywhere as plainly declared his choice of such fathers to be rulers as he did of moses and joshua we might believe moses and joshua were in their place and stead but that being the question in debate till that be better proved moses being chosen by god to be ruler of his people will no more prove that government belonged to adam's heir or to the fatherhood than god's choosing errand of the tribe of levi to be priest will prove that the priesthood belongs to adam's heir or the prime fathers says god would choose errand to be priest and moses ruler in israel though neither of those offices were settled on adam's heir or the fatherhood our author goes on and after them likewise for a time he raised up judges to defend his people in time of peril page 18 this proves fatherly authority to be the original of government and that he descended from adam to his heirs just as well as what went before only here our author seems to confess that these judges who were all the governors they then had were only men of valour whom they made their generals to defend them in time of peril and cannot god raise up such men unless fatherhood have a title to government but says our author when god gave the Israelites kings he reestablished the ancient and prime right of lineal succession to paternal government page 18 how did god reestablish it by law a positive command we find no such thing our author means then that when god gave them in giving them a king he reestablished the right etc to reestablish de facto the right of lineal succession to paternal government is to put a man in possession of that government which his fathers did enjoy and he by lineal succession had a right to for first if it were another government and what his ancestors had it was not succeeding to an ancient right but beginning a new one for if a prince should give a man besides his ancient patrimony which for some ages his family had been deceased of an additional estate never before in the possession of his ancestors he could not be said to reestablish the right of lineal succession to any more than what had been formally enjoyed by his ancestors if therefore the power the kings of Israel had were anything more than Isaac or Jacob had it was not the reestablishing in them the right of succession to a power but giving them a new power however you please to call it paternal or not and whether Isaac and Jacob had the same power that the kings of Israel had I desire anyone by what has been above said to consider and I do not think they will find that either Abraham Isaac or Jacob had any regal power at all next there can be no reestablishment of the prime and ancient right of lineal succession to anything unless he that is put in possession of it has the right to succeed and be the true and next heir to him he succeeds to can that be a reestablishment which begins in a new family or that the reestablishment of an ancient right of lineal succession when a crown is given to one who has no right of succession to it and who if the lineal succession had gone on had been out of all possibility of pretense to it Saul the first king God gave the Israelites was of the tribe of Benjamin was the ancient and prime right of lineal succession reestablished in him the next was David the youngest son of Jesse of the posterity of Judah Jacob's third son was the ancient and prime right of lineal succession to paternal government reestablished in him or in Solomon his younger son and successor in the throne or in Jeroboam over the ten tribes or in Asthalia a woman who reigned six years and utter stranger to the royal blood if the ancient and prime right of lineal succession to paternal government were reestablished in any of these or their posterity the ancient and prime right of lineal succession to paternal government belongs to younger brothers as well as elder and may be reestablished in any man living for whatever younger brothers by ancient and prime right of lineal succession may have as well as the elder that every man living may have a right to by lineal succession and Sir Robert as well as any other and so what a brave right of lineal succession to his paternal or regal government our author has reestablished for the securing the rights and inheritance of crowns where everyone may have it let the world consider but says our author however page 19 when so ever god made choice of any special person to be king he intended that the issue also should have benefit thereof as being comprehended sufficiently in the person of the father although the father was only named in the grant this yet will not help out succession for if as our author says the benefit of the grant be intended to the issue of the grantee this will not direct the succession since if god give anything to a man and his issue in general the claim cannot be to any one of that issue in particular everyone that is of his race will have an equal right if it be said our author meant air I believe our author was as willing as anybody to have used that word if it would have served his turn but Solomon who succeeded David in the throne being no more his heir than Jeroboam who succeeded him in the government of the ten tribes was his issue our author had reason to avoid saying that god intended it to the heirs when that would not hold in a succession which our author could not accept against and so he has left his succession as undetermined as if he had said nothing about it for if the regal power could be given by god to a man and his issue as the land of Canaan was to Abraham and his seed must they not all have a title to it all share in it and one may as well say that by god's grant to Abraham and his seed the land of Canaan was to belong only to one of his seed exclusive of all the others as by god's grant of dominion to a man and his issue this dominion was to belong in peculiar to one of his issue exclusive of all others but how well our author prove that when so ever god made choice of any special person to be king he intended that the I suppose he means his issue also should have benefit thereof as he so soon forgot Moses and Joshua whom in this very section he says god out of a special care chose to govern as princes and the judges that god raised up had not these princes having the authority of the supreme fatherhood the same power that the kings had and being specially chosen by god himself should not their issue have the benefit of that choice as well as davids or solomons if these had the paternal authority put into their hands immediately by god why had not their issue the benefit of this grant in a succession to this power or if they had it as Adams heirs why did not their heirs enjoy it after them by right descending to them for they could not be heirs to one another was the power the same and from the same original in Moses Joshua and the judges as it was in david and the kings and was it inheritable in one and not in the other if it was not paternal authority then god's own people were governed by those that had not paternal authority and those governors did well enough without it if it were paternal authority and god chose the persons that were to exercise it our author's rule fails that when so ever god makes choice of any person to be supreme ruler for I suppose the name king has no spell in it it is not the t