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Another just impediment making void a contract,Minors inca- pable of contrac- ting.is the want of sufficient knowledge in minors. 'Tis 168 TheRightsandDutiesinBook III. surprizing that while all civilized nations, because ofthe imprudence of youth, have made minors incapa-ble of obliging themselves in any matter of commerce,and annull all such deeds of theirs, or contracts en-tered into without the consent of parents or guardi- ans, yet in an affair of incomparably greater conse- quence, the disposal of their persons, and choice of a partner in all important affairs for life, a joint- proprietor of their fortunes, and parent of their chil- dren, every boy past fourteen years of age, and girl past twelve, can bind themselves irrevocably without any such consent; nay, contrary to the express com-mands of parents. This doctrine sprung from thatfruitful source of all corruption and superstition, thechurch of Rome; and for securing it she has takencare to blind men's eyes so as not to use the resourcesand exceptions justly allowed in other foolish or ini-quitous contracts, by cloathing this one with a cloudof the mystical nonsense of a sacrament.
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The original of these laws is easily found in history.The causes of them in history.During the early persecutions, some melancholy no-tions of sanctity in all sufferings, and of impurity inmany of our most innocent enjoyments generally pre-vailed. Worldly business was thought inconsistentwith the heights of piety, tho' piety is never moresincere and lively than when it engages men in all so-cial and kind offices to others, out of a sense of dutyto God: and* just philosophy, as well as religion,could teach that true devotion, tranquillity, resigna-tion, and recollection too, may be practised even in acourt or camp, as well as in a wilderness. But celi-bacy was early admired as sacred, and the chastestmarriage was reputed at best a state incapable of thehighest purity. The ecclesiasticks affecting to be ex-amples of perfection, both generally practised celiba-cy, and recommended it. When by the establishmentof Christianity they got access to wealth and power,they grew as corrupt as the layety; and yet, not torenounce their old known maxims, and to retain theirauthority and veneration with the layety, they mustkeep up this shew of sanctity, and of disengagement from the world, tho' contrary to the express doctrine of the apostles. Celibacy was enjoined on the cler-gy in some early councils, and these injunctions oftenrepeated in corrupt ages, while they were generallyframing one canon after another to prevent their in-famy by keeping concubines and whores, and with lit-tle success. Under such restraints from lawful en-
* See Marc. Antonin. in a variety of passages.
theStateofMarriage. 183 joyments, no doubt, much debauchery was secretlyChap. 1.practised by a corrupt generation, supported in easeand luxury: and by their artifices, in the eleventhand twelfth centuries, the ages of ignorance and su-perstition, the cognisance of matrimonial causes, andof all venerial crimes, was wrested from the secularjudges, and assumed by the spiritual. The punish-ments they appointed were some useless and often trif-ling pennances, and donations to ecclesiasticks. Theformer laws were too severe for their purposes. Adul-tery was the most convenient crime for such clergy,with less danger of discovery, and free from the chargeof maintenance to the spurious offspring. The proofrequisite for conviction must be made difficult, or al-most impossible; and all prosecutions must be discou-raged. The injured prosecutor must be restrainedfrom marriage, after divorce obtained upon the fullestproof. It must have been monstrous, and even shock-ing to a Popish nation, to have relaxed all penaltiesupon adulteresses and their gallants, without a likelenity to the adulteries of husbands. Thus the pu-nishments were made light to all. And the clergy wellknew their own superior advantages, by their reputa-tion for sanctity, and their access to great intimaciesby confession, and other religious artifices.33 - /
To alledge that men were first compelled by forceto submit to civil power, must be very incredible; asno one man could be supposed to have strength or forcesufficient to compel considerable numbers into suchsubmission: and if he had the assistance of others inthis compulsion, these others must have been previ-ously subjected to his civil power: and thus a politi-cal union must have been subsisting before any consi-derable force could have been used to compel meninto subjection. 'Tis true we find that in earlier agessome heads of families had very numerous trains ofdomesticks of one sort or other. But we are not toregard names in this matter, but the real powers. Suchheads of families have had the powers of civil gover-nors. And men have been invited into their families,or little states, by such motives as are already alledged. But, what may supersede many of these debates as toour present design; we are inquiring into the just andwise motives to enter into civil polity, and the ways TheOriginalofStates. 225 it can be justly constituted; and not into points ofChap. 5.history about facts. If in fact the originals of many go- vernments have been very infamous and unjust; thismay abate the pride of those poor mortals, who hav-ing got into possession of power first founded by thevillanous acts of their ancestors preying upon the weak- ness, the credulity, the mutual contentions, or the su- perstitions of their fellows, have their imaginationsswelled with notions of some sacred dignity or divini- ty in their station, and rights of government, andwould impose the same notions upon others, who arefar superior to them in every worthy quality.
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In ages of darkness, and too often also in those ofgreater knowledge, by the perfidious arts of design-ing princes, and by the base servility of too many ec-clesiasticks, who managed the superstition of a popu-lace, by the violent restraints put upon divulging anyjuster sentiments about the rights of mankind, thenatural notions of polity were erased out of the mindsof men, and they were filled with some confused ima-ginations of something adorable in monarchs, somerepresentation of the Divinity, and that even in theworst of them; and of some certain divine claims incertain families, abstracted from any publick interestsof the nations to be ruled by them; and upon thesegroundless attachments, the best blood of these nati-ons hath been sacrificed by the contending factions.No great wonder this, that millions thus look uponthemselves as a piece of property to one of their fel- Obligations ofSubjectstoRulers. 281 lows as silly and worthless as the meanest of them;Chap. 7.when the like arts of superstition have made millions,nay the very artificers themselves, fall down before the block or stone they had set up, or adore monkeys,cats, and crocodiles, as the sovereign disposers of their fortunes. Hence many men of learning too are notashamed to speak of patrimonial and despotick king-doms, where millions of men, and all their posteritytoo for all succeeding ages, are supposed to be in con-science bound to a perpetual subjection to one of theirfellows, to be a piece of property subservient to hisadvantage or capricious humours, and to those of hissuccessors.
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But as the people are generally averse for reasonsThe right of seizures in war and reprisals.often very trifling and superstitious, to give up theirgovernors to justice, they are bound to compensate
* See this claim explained above, chap. 3. art. 8. and ff. 9. tit. 1. and 4.
294 HowCivil Poweris acquired.Book III. damages. And this justifies the seizures made in warof the goods belonging to subjects of the hostile state,when we cannot obtain compensation either from the goods of their rulers, or from the publick stock ofthe state. Upon these our first demands should be forany damage sustained, either by publick council of thestate, or by any injurious action of its subjects whomit could have restrained or obliged to compensate da-mages and refused it. When we cannot thus obtainit, we have a right to take it from the subjects as wecan. And let them have recourse to their rulers forcompensation of these losses they sustained on a pub-lick account, as they have a just right to obtain itfrom them out of the publick stock. As the wealthand power of a state depends on that of its subjects,the seizing their goods is often the only way we canhave of distressing an injurious state and bringing it to just terms of peace.36 - /
XI. As the people have a right of resistance,How forfeitares are incarred and heirs precladed.and of dethroning a prince who is grosly perfidiousto his trust after he comes to possess it, whensoeverit is necessary for the preservation of the state; wemay certainly also conclude, that when an heir ap-parent shews before he comes into possession eithersuch stupidity, or such cruel, and tyrannical disposi-tions, or such pernicious superstitions and perfidy, asare inconsistent with a faithful discharge of the trustintended for him by the laws, and with the safety ofthe people in their most important interests civil orreligious: they have a right to prevent his coming in-to possession, and thus to prevent all the bloodshedand other mischiefs which must attend a civilwar todethrone him: since such a person can give no realsecurity against his abuse of power, to the very worstpurposes when he shall obtain it.
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All this may be done without any restraint or pe-nalties inflicted upon men for different sentiments;nay as men of different sentiments may think them-selves obliged to publish them, and convince others;the magistrate can have no right to punish any forpublishing their sentiments, how false soever he may and theExecutionof them. 313 think them, if they are not hurtful to society. What-Chap. 9.ever whimsical men may introduce into their schemesof religion, while they do not oppose the goodness ofthe Presiding Mind, and his moral providence exer-cised over the world, or any of the principles of themoral and social virtues, they do not oppose the endof the magistrate's office or the points about whichhis leading should be employed. It is therefore un-just, as no publick interest requires it, that men should be punished for following their consciences in publish- ing even these weak conceits which do no hurt to the state, and seem to them of importance. It has always been found, where there have been no restraints upon men about such tenets, in free states, and where there has been a general toleration of them with good na-ture; free conversation and argument have graduallyabated the bigotry and hot zeal of weak men aboutsuch points, and made more just sentiments of religi-on generally prevail.
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If by any religious impostures or base artifices ofsuperstition princes or states have consented to suchsubjection; upon detecting the fraud they must seethat they are no longer bound; as contracts obtainedby fraud produce no obligation. And if any state hasshaken off such a superstitious yoke, and asserted itsindependency; its governors cannot subject it againby any deed of theirs, more than they can alienate and theExecutionof them. 327 the state, or any part of the supreme power, by saleChap. 9.to a foreign prince with no such mock spiritual titles.The changing of names is the common state-trick ofall impostors.
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When the majority of a state consent to changeCertain changes of polity free such as dissent.the polity in some essential parts, upon which the safe- ty and prosperity of the subjects depended, in com-pliance with an invader or usurper, or out of any su-perstition or folly; such as dissent have a right to with- draw with their effects into any other country; or to associate by themselves: nor can they be retained upon any pretence of the old contract, since the essential articles are changed without their consent. A manacts unjustly who dissents from any wise and usefulchange of the polity; and yet it would be hard to ob-lige him by force, without some great necessity, to re-main a citizen.
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States themselves have within them the seeds ofAll states have in them the natu- ral causes of dis- solution.death and destruction; what in the temerity, impru-dence, or superstition of the first contrivers; what inthe selfish, ambitious, or other meaner passions of thegovernors, and their subjects, jarring with each otherand among themselves; what in the oppositions of thoseseeming interests which such passions pursue; what inthe weakness and inconstancy of human virtues; and 378 TheConclusion.Book III. in the proneness of men to luxury and present pleasures,without attention to the consequences. These seeds,along with external force, and jarring national inte-rests, have always occasioned the dissolution and deathof every body politick, and will occasion it as certainlyas the internal weakness of the animal body and exter-nal causes will at last bring it to its fatal period. Goodmen indeed study, by all the art they are masters of, toward off and delay these catastrophes, as long as theycan, from their friends or their country; such kind of-fices are the most honourable and delightful employ-ments they can have while they live. But he must littlethink of the order of nature who sees not that all ourefforts will be defeated at last, whether for the pre- servation of individuals, or of the body politick.
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Es ist gottlos, sich GOtt so vorzustellen, alsThörichte oder gottlose Gelübde können nicht verbinden.wenn er gleich den ärgsten unsrer Nebenmenschen auf alle Vortheile lauerte, die er durch Furcht und Schwachheit von den Menschen erhalten könte, und als wenn er auf die Erfüllung jedes übereilten Versprechens dränge; oder von ihm zu glauben, daß er, gleich einem listigen Agenten, für eine gewisse Parthey, zum Schaden aller seiner übrigen vernünftigen Creaturen, allerhand Gewinn zu erschleichen suchte, der doch auch zum Verderben selbst solcher Stände gereichen, und sie durch Ueppigkeit und müssigen Ueberflus lasterhaft machen mus.Noch weniger können wir uns einbilden, daß er sich nach prächtigen Gebäuden und kostbaren Geschirren, die das Verderben seiner lebendigen Tempel verursachen, sehnen werde. Alle solche thörichten Zweytes Buch.596 Von der Natur Gelübden, die von unsern Vorurtheilen, von der eingebildeten Heiligkeit gewisser Stände, von der Einfalt, daß wir gute Werke zu thun glauben, wenn wir diese durch Unterdruckung und Sclaverey der andern bereichern, oder der Absicht die Religion durch solche Mittel, die dazu nicht tauglich sind, zu befördern, herrühren, sind nichtig; und sobald wir zu vernünftigern Begriffen gelangen. können wir uns von ihrer Verbindlichkeit für befreyet halten. Was wir, so lange wir über der wahren Beschaffenheit solcher Dinge irrig gewesen sind, aus Aberglaubenweggeschenkt haben, können wir mit Rechte wieder zurückfordern, eben wie bey andern Contracten, wowir uns in wesentlichen Stücken geirrt haben. Wir haben allemal eine gerechte Einwendung, wegen des Betrugs, der von denjenigen, die solche aus Aberglauben geschenkte Dinge in Besitz nehmen,angewendet worden ist.
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Bey denen Nationen, wo die Duelle im Schwange gehn, können die Jnjurien, die dazu Gelegenheit geben, selten dadurch wieder gut gemacht werden, der Ausgang mag seyn wie er will. Ueberdies befindet sich die unschuldige Partey mit der schuldigen in gleicher Gefahr. Diese Gewohnheit ist zu den dunkeln abergläubischen Zeiten eingeführet worden, da die papistische Geistlichkeit alle Welt zur Tapferkeit aufzumuntern suchte, nachdem sie vorher durch List Mittel gefunden hatte, dieselbe vermöge der Creutzzüge und heiligen Kriege zu Ausbreitung ihrer Herrschaft anzuwenden. Die Rechte die aus Jnjurien entstehen. 657Funfzehnter Abschnitt. abergläubischen Ritter waren fest überzeugt, daß die Vorsehung sich allemal durch Wunderwerkezum Behufe der Unschuld ins Mittel legte. Die Beschuldigungen der Falschheit, der Verrätherey, der Unredlichkeit und andrer Laster können, durch Duelle, wenn sie auch glücklich für den Beschuldigten ausfallen, nicht widerlegt werden. Ein Lügner, ein Betrüger, ein Schelm, der elendeste, niederträchtigste Bösewicht kan auf dem Degen glücklich seyn, und so gut mit einer Pistole zu zielen wissen, als der tugendhafteste Mann. Der glückliche Ausgang eines Duells verändert keines weisen Menschen Meinung von unserm Character, obgleich andre vielleicht vorsichtiger werden, und ihre böse Meinung nicht so leicht zu erkennen geben. Der Vorwurf der Feigheit ist der einzige, zu dessen Ablehnung das Duelliren etwas beytragen kan. Aber viele der Schlechtesten unter den Menschen sind bey solchen Vorfällen nicht feigherzig, da sie doch bey Gelegenheiten, wo ihr Vaterland bey den wichtigsten Dingen, sowohl zu Kriegs- als Friedenszeiten ihren Muth verlangt, nicht den geringsten bezeigen.
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Das Ansehn der Künste oder anderer Beschäftigungen kömt auf diese zween Punkte an; auf den Nutzen, den sie dem menschlichen Geschlechte verschaffen, und auf das Genie, das dazu erfordert wird. Die Beschäftigung, welche bestimt ist, die wahren Grundsätze der Frömmigkeit und Tugend einzuschärfen, wird allemal, in Ansehung beyder Punkte, unter diejenigen gerechnet, welche die meiste Ehre verdienen. Die besten Dinge können, wenn sie verderbt werden, die gefährlichsten seyn: dies gilt auch bey dieser Beschäftigung, wenn sie gemisbraucht wird, einen gefährlichen Aberglauben einzuflössen, über Kleinigkeiten Has und feindselige Erbiterungen zu erwecken, wenn man sie zu Mitteln des Ehrgeizes, des Geizes und der Wollust, oder zu einem Werkzeuge der Tyranney und der Unterdrückung macht.
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Kan nicht ein besondrer Nothfall uns auch von der gemeinen Regel die Wahrheit zu reden, befreyn. Gesetzt, ein Genghiscan oder ein anders ähnliches morgenländisches Ungeheuer, hat den Untergang einer ganzen Stadt beschlossen, wenn er die aus besondrer Noth entstehen. 693Siebzehnter Abschnitt. finden wird, daß ihre Einwohner seinen Feinden den geringsten Schutz haben angedeyhen lassen. Er befragt einen Bürger, auf den er sich verläst, darüber; dieser kan also, wenn er den Tyrannen hintergeht, das Leben von Tausenden, mit ihren unschuldigen Kindern erhalten; wenn er ihm aber die Wahrheit entdeckt, wird es das gröste Blutbad nach sich ziehn. Kan hier einem weisen Manne sein Herz, gerechte Vorwürfe machen, daß er das gemeine Gesetz die Wahrheit zu reden, gebrochen, und den natürlichen Hang dazu, aus solchen wichtigen Bewegungsgründen der Menschlichkeit überwunden hat? Wer tadelt den Tullius Hostilius, oder den Eumenes, weil sie ihre eigne Soldaten betrogen haben, da dies das einzige Mittel war, ihre und ihres Vaterlandes Sicherheit zu erhalten? Hätte einer von ihnen dieses Mittel, wenn es ihm von seinen Räthen vorgeschlagen wäre, nicht ergriffen, so könte man ihn mit Rechte einer abergläubisch strengen Beobachtung der stückweisen Moral beschuldigen, die dadurch entsteht, wenn man nicht Verstand genung besitzt, die höchste zu beurtheilen.
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Nach allem aber, was schon von dieser SacheDie Empfindung eines tugendhaften und weisen Mannes ist hier unsre letzte Zuflucht.gesagt worden ist, müssen wir, wenn nichts deutlichers und genauers noch entdeckt wird, unsre Zuflucht zu dem innerlichen Gefühle eines redlichen Herzens nehmen. Die Empfindung mus, wie Aristoteles uns oft sagt, den allgemeinen Grundsatz, auf besondere Fälle anwenden, und also sind Zweytes Buch.712 Wie man in der natürlichen Freyheit der wirklich tugendhafte Mann, und seine Empfindungen ein einigen dieser feinen Fälle das höchste Gericht. Leute die wahrhaftig tugendhaft sind werden selten in Gefahr gerathen diese Ausnahmen zu misbrauchen. Und keine Regeln, oder strenge Grundsätze und Meinungen sind fähig den Ungerechten, den Geizigen, den Ehrbegierigen, den Eigennützigen und abergläubischen Anhänger einer falchen<falschen>Religion zu binden. Wenn solche Leute die Billigkeit der Ausnahme der Nothwendigkeit in wichtigen Fällen zugestehn, so werden sie dieselbe zur Unzeit anwenden. Gestehn sie sie nicht zu, so werden sie durch ihre Handlungen selbst diejenigen Gesetze die sie für allgemein und aller Ausnahmen unfähig halten, übertreten.