to establish; that, however, which I have
just laid down, seems to me the most natural, for the following
reasons: First, because, in the first case, the right of conquest
being in fact no right at all, it could not serve as a foundation for
any other right, the conqueror and the conquered ever remaining with
respect to each other in a state of war, unless the conquered,
restored to the full possession of their liberty, should freely choose
their conqueror for their chief. Till then, whatever capitulations
might have been made between them, as these capitulations were founded
upon violence, and of course _de facto_ null and void, there could not
have existed in this hypothesis either a true society, or a political
body, or any other law but that of the strongest. Second, because
these words strong and weak, are ambiguous in the second case; for
during the interval between the establishment of the right of property
or prior occupation and that of political government, the meaning of
these terms is better expressed by the words poor and rich, as before
the establishment of laws men in reality had no other means of
reducing their equals, but by invading the property of these equals,
or by parting with some of their own property to them. Third, because
the poor having nothing but their liberty to lose, it would have been
the height of madness in them to give up willingly the only blessing
they had left without obtaining some consideration for it: whereas the
rich being sensible, if I may say so, in every part of their
possessions, it was much easier to do them mischief, and therefore
more incumbent upon them to guard against it; and because, in fine, it
is but reasonable to suppose, that a thing has been invented by him to
whom it could be of service rather than by him to whom it must prove
detrimental.

Government in its infancy had no regular and permanent form. For want
of a sufficient fund of philosophy and experience, men could see no
further than the present inconveniences, and never thought of
providing remedies for future ones, but in proportion as they arose.
In spite of all the labours of the wisest legislators, the political
state still continued imperfect, because it was in a manner the work
of chance; and, as the foundations of it were ill laid, time, though
sufficient to discover its defects and suggest the remedies for them,
could never mend its original vices. Men were continually repairing;
whereas, to er