The manual of liberty Author:Marshall Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: RIGHTS OF KINGS. Let me, impartial, with unwearied thought, Try men and things : let me, as monarcbs ought, Examine well on what my power depends, What are th... more »e general principles and ends Of government, bow empire first hegan', And wherefore man was rais'd to reign o'er man, Chubchil: Gotham, vol. ii, p. 181. ACCORDING to Grotius, it is doubtful, whether the whole race of mankind, except about an hundred individuals, belong to those individuals, or whether those individuals belong to the whole race of mankind; and he appears to lean to the former opinion. This is also the opinion of Hobbes. Thus they divide the human species into herds of cattle, each of which has its keeper, who protects it from others, only that he may make a property of it himself. As the shepherd is of a superior nature to his flock, so the herd- keepers of men, or their chiefs, are of a superior nature to the herds over which they preside. Whence can this arise ? And arc there any means by whith it may be rendered lawful ? "The most ancient of all societies, and the only- natural one, is that of a family. And even in this children are no longer connected with their father, than while they stand in need of his assistance. When this becomes needless the natural tie is dissolved ; the children are exempted from the obedience they owe their father, and the father is equally so from the solicitude due from him to his children : both assume a state of independence respecting each orher. They may continue indeed to live' together afterwards, but their connection in such case is.no longer natural but voluntary. I shall say nothing of King Adam, or the Emperor Noah, father of three monarchs, who, like the children of Saturn, as some have imagined them to oe, divided the world among them. I hope ...« less