[Footnote 20 In examining the different titles to authority
in government, we shall meet with many reasons to convince
us, that the right of succession depends, in a great measure
on the imagination. Mean while I shall rest contented with
observing one example, which belongs to the present subject.
Suppose that a person die without children, and that a
dispute arises among his relations concerning his
inheritance; it is evident, that if his riches be deriv'd
partly from his father, partly from his mother, the most
natural way of determining such a dispute, is, to divide his
possessions, and assign each part to the family, from whence
it is deriv'd. Now as the person is suppos'd to have been
once the full and entire proprietor of those goods; I ask,
what is it makes us find a certain equity and natural reason
in this partition, except it be the imagination? His
affection to these families does not depend upon his
possessions; for which reason his consent can never be
presum'd precisely for such a partition. And as to the
public interest, it seems not to be in the least concern'd
on the one side or the other.]

SECT. IV OF THE TRANSFERENCE OF PROPERTY BY CONSENT

However useful, or even necessary, the stability of possession may be to
human society, it is attended with very considerable inconveniences.
The relation of fitness or suitableness ought never to enter into
consideration, in distributing the properties of mankind; but we must
govern ourselves by rules, which are more general in their application,
and more free from doubt and uncertainty. Of this kind is present
possession upon the first establishment of society; and afterwards
occupation, prescription, accession, and succession. As these depend
very much on chance, they must frequently prove contradictory both to
men's wants and desires; and persons and possessions must often be very
ill adjusted. This is a grand inconvenience, which calls for a remedy.
To apply one directly, and allow every man to seize by violence what he
judges to be fit for him, would destroy society; and therefore the
rules of justice seek some medium betwixt a rigid stability, and this
changeable and uncertain adjustment. But there is no medium better than
that obvious one, that possession and property should always be stable,
except when the proprietor consents to bestow them