Chapter VIII
               Of the Beginning of Political Societies

  95. MEN being, as has been said, by nature all free, equal, and
independent, no one can be put out of this estate and subjected to the
political power of another without his own consent, which is done by
agreeing with other men, to join and unite into a community for
their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living, one amongst another, in
a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against
any that are not of it. This any number of men may do, because it
injures not the freedom of the rest; they are left, as they were, in
the liberty of the state of Nature. When any number of men have so
consented to make one community or government, they are thereby
presently incorporated, and make one body politic, wherein the
majority have a right to act and conclude the rest.
  96. For, when any number of men have, by the consent of every
individual, made a community, they have thereby made that community
one body, with a power to act as one body, which is only by the will
and determination of the majority. For that which acts any
community, being only the consent of the individuals of it, and it
being one body, must move one way, it is necessary the body should
move that way whither the greater force carries it, which is the
consent of the majority, or else it is impossible it should act or
continue one body, one community, which the consent of every
individual that united into it agreed that it should; and so every one
is bound by that consent to be concluded by the majority. And
therefore we see that in assemblies empowered to act by positive
laws where no number is set by that positive law which empowers
them, the act of the majority passes for the act of the whole, and
of course determines as having, by the law of Nature and reason, the
power of the whole.
  97. And thus every man, by consenting with others to make one body
politic under one government, puts himself under an obligation to
every one of that society to submit to the determination of the
majority, and to be concluded by it; or else this original compact,
whereby he with others incorporates into one society, would signify
nothing, and be no compact if he be left free and under no other
ties than he was in before in the state of Nature. For what appearance
would there be of any compact? What new engagement if he were no
farther tied by any decrees of the society than he himself thought fit
and did actually consent to? This would be still as great a liberty as
he himself had before his compact, or any one else in the state of
Nature, who may submit himself and consent to any acts of it if he
thinks fit.
  98. For if the consent of the majority shall not in reason be
received as the act of the whole, and conclude every individual,
nothing but the consent of every individual can make anything to be
the act of the whole, which, considering the infirmities of health and
avocations of business, which in a number though much less than that
of a commonwealth, will necessarily keep many away from the public
assembly; and the variety of opinions and contrariety of interests
which unavoidably happen in all collections of men, it is next
impossible ever to be had. And, therefore, if coming into society be
upon such terms, it will be only like Cato's coming into the
theatre, tantum ut exiret. Such a constitution as this would make
the mighty leviathan of a shorter duration than the feeblest
creatures, and not let it outlast the day it was born in, which cannot
be supposed till we can think that rational creatures should desire
and constitute societies only to be dissolved. For where the
majority cannot conclude the rest, there they cannot act as one
body, and consequently will be immediately dissolved again.
  99. Whosoever, therefore, out of a state of Nature unite into a
community, must be understood to give up all the power necessary to
the ends for which they unite into society to the majority of the
community, unless they expressly agreed in any number greater than the
majority. And this is done by barely agreeing to unite into one
political society, which is all the compact that is, or needs be,
between the individuals that enter into or make up a commonwealth. And
thus, that which begins and actually constitutes any political society
is nothing but the consent of any number of freemen capable of
majority, to unite and incorporate into such a society. And this is
that, and that only, which did or could give beginning to any lawful
government in the world.
  100. To this I find two objections made: 1. That there are no
instances to be found in story of a company of men, independent and
equal one amongst another, that met together, and in this way began
and set up a government. 2. It is impossible of right that men
should do so, because all men, being born under government, they are
to submit to that, and are not at liberty to begin a new one.
  101. To the first there is this to answer: That it is not at all
to be wondered that history gives us but a very little account of
men that lived together in the state of Nature. The inconveniencies of
that condition, and the love and want of society, no sooner brought
any number of them together, but they presently united and in
corporated if they designed to continue together. And if we may not
suppose men ever to have been in the state of Nature, because we
hear not much of them in such a state, we may as well suppose the
armies of Salmanasser or Xerxes were never children, because we hear
little of them till they were men and embodied in armies. Government
is everywhere antecedent to records, and letters seldom come in
amongst a people till a long continuation of civil society has, by
other more necessary arts, provided for their safety, ease, and
plenty. And then they begin to look after the history of their
founders, and search into their original when they have outlived the
memory of it. For it is with commonwealths as with particular persons,
they are commonly ignorant of their own births and infancies; and if
they know anything of it, they are beholding for it to the
accidental records that others have kept of it. And those that we have
of the beginning of any polities in the world, excepting that of the
Jews, where God Himself immediately interposed, and which favours
not at all paternal dominion, are all either plain instances of such a
beginning as I have mentioned, or at least have manifest footsteps
of it.
  102. He must show a strange inclination to deny evident matter of
fact, when it agrees not with his hypothesis, who will not allow
that the beginning of Rome and Venice were by the uniting together
of several men, free and independent one of another, amongst whom
there was no natural superiority or subjection. And if Josephus
Acosta's word may be taken, he tells us that in many parts of
America there was no government at all. "There are great and
apparent conjectures," says he, "that these men [speaking of those
of Peru] for a long time had neither kings nor commonwealths, but
lived in troops, as they do this day in Florida- the Cheriquanas,
those of Brazil, and many other nations, which have no certain
kings, but, as occasion is offered in peace or war, they choose
their captains as they please" (lib. i. cap. 25). If it be said,
that every man there was born subject to his father, or the head of
his family. that the subjection due from a child to a father took away
not his freedom of uniting into what political society he thought fit,
has been already proved; but be that as it will, these men, it is
evident, were actually free; and whatever superiority some politicians
now would place in any of them, they themselves claimed it not; but,
by consent, were all equal, till, by the same consent, they set rulers
over themselves. So that their politic societies all began from a
voluntary union, and the mutual agreement of men freely acting in
the choice of their governors and forms of government.
  103. And I hope those who went away from Sparta, with Palantus,
mentioned by Justin, will be allowed to have been freemen
independent one of another, and to have set up a government over
themselves by their own consent. Thus I have given several examples
out of history of people, free and in the state of Nature, that, being
met together, incorporated and began a commonwealth. And if the want
of such instances be an argument to prove that government were not nor
could not be so begun, I suppose the contenders for paternal empire
were better let it alone than urge it against natural liberty; for
if they can give so many instances out of history of governments begun
upon paternal right, I think (though at least an argument from what
has been to what should of right be of no great force) one might,
without any great danger, yield them the cause. But if I might
advise them in the case, they would do well not to search too much
into the original of governments as they have begun de facto, lest
they should find at the foundation of most of them something very
little favourable to the design they promote, and such a power as they
contend for.
  104. But, to conclude: reason being plain on our side that men are
naturally free; and the examples of history showing that the
governments of the world, that were begun in peace, had their
beginning laid on that foundation, and were made by the consent of the
people; there can be little room for doubt, either where the right is,
or what has been the opinion or practice of mankind about the first
erecting of governments.
  105. I will not deny that if we look back, as far as history will
direct us, towards the original of commonwealths, we shall generally
find them under the government and administration of one man. And I am
also apt to believe that where a family was numerous enough to subsist
by itself, and continued entire together, without mixing with
others, as it often happens, where there is much land and few
people, the government commonly began in the father. For the father
having, by the law of Nature, the same power, with every man else,
to punish, as he thought fit, any offences against that law, might
thereby punish his transgressing children, even when they were men,
and out of their pupilage; and they were very likely to submit to
his punishment, and all join with him against the offender in their
turns, giving him thereby power to execute his sentence against any
transgression, and so, in effect, make him the law-maker and
governor over all that remained in conjunction with his family. He was
fittest to be trusted; paternal affection secured their property and
interest under his care, and the custom of obeying him in their
childhood made it easier to submit to him rather than any other. If,
therefore, they must have one to rule them, as government is hardly to
be avoided amongst men that live together, who so likely to be the man
as he that was their common father, unless negligence, cruelty, or any
other defect of mind or body, made him unfit for it? But when either
the father died. and left his next heir- for want of age, wisdom,
courage, or any other qualities- less fit for rule, or where several
families met and consented to continue together, there, it is not to
be doubted, but they used their natural freedom to set up him whom
they judged the ablest and most likely to rule well over them.
Conformable hereunto we find the people of America, who- living out of
the reach of the conquering swords and spreading domination of the two
great empires of Peru and Mexico- enjoyed their own natural freedom,
though, caeteris paribus, they commonly prefer the heir of their
deceased king; yet, if they find him any way weak or incapable, they
pass him by, and set up the stoutest and bravest man for their ruler.
  106. Thus, though looking back as far as records give us any account
of peopling the world, and the history of nations, we commonly find
the government to be in one hand, yet it destroys not that which I
affirm- viz., that the beginning of politic society depends upon the
consent of the individuals to join into and make one society, who,
when they are thus incorporated, might set up what form of
government they thought fit. But this having given occasion to men
to mistake and think that, by Nature, government was monarchical,
and belonged to the father, it may not be amiss here to consider why
people, in the beginning, generally pitched upon this form, which,
though perhaps the father's pre-eminency might, in the first
institution of some commonwealths, give a rise to and place in the
beginning the power in one hand, yet it is plain that the reason
that continued the form of government in a single person was not any
regard or respect to paternal authority, since all petty monarchies-
that is, almost all monarchies, near their original, have been
commonly, at least upon occasion, elective.
  107. First, then, in the beginning of things, the father's
government of the childhood of those sprung from him having accustomed
them to the rule of one man, and taught them that where it was
exercised with care and skill, with affection and love to those
under it, it was sufficient to procure and preserve men (all the
political happiness they sought for in society), it was no wonder that
they should pitch upon and naturally run into that form of
government which, from their infancy, they had been all accustomed to,
and which, by experience, they had found both easy and safe. To
which if we add, that monarchy being simple and most obvious to men,
whom neither experience had instructed in forms of government, nor the
ambition or insolence of empire had taught to beware of the
encroachments of prerogative or the inconveniencies of absolute power,
which monarchy, in succession, was apt to lay claim to and bring
upon them; it was not at all strange that they should not much trouble
themselves to think of methods of restraining any exorbitances of
those to whom they had given the authority over them, and of balancing
the power of government by placing several parts of it in different
hands. They had neither felt the oppression of tyrannical dominion,
nor did the fashion of the age, nor their possessions or way of
living, which afforded little matter for covetousness or ambition,
give them any reason to apprehend or provide against it; and,
therefore, it is no wonder they put themselves into such a frame of
government as was not only, as I said, most obvious and simple, but
also best suited to their present state and condition, which stood
more in need of defence against foreign invasions and injuries than of
multiplicity of laws where there was but very little property, and
wanted not variety of rulers and abundance of officers to direct and
look after their execution where there were but few trespassers and
few offenders. Since, then, those who liked one another so well as
to join into society cannot but be supposed to have some
acquaintance and friendship together, and some trust one in another,
they could not but have greater apprehensions of others than of one
another; and, therefore, their first care and thought cannot but be
supposed to be, how to secure themselves against foreign force. It was
natural for them to put themselves under a frame of government which
might best serve to that end, and choose the wisest and bravest man to
conduct them in their wars and lead them out against their enemies,
and in this chiefly be their ruler.
  108. Thus we see that the kings of the Indians, in America, which is
still a pattern of the first ages in Asia and Europe, whilst the
inhabitants were too few for the country, and want of people and money
gave men no temptation to enlarge their possessions of land or contest
for wider extent of ground, are little more than generals of their
armies; and though they command absolutely in war, yet at home, and in
time of peace, they exercise very little dominion, and have but a very
moderate sovereignty, the resolutions of peace and war being
ordinarily either in the people or in a council, though the war
itself, which admits not of pluralities of governors, naturally
evolves the command into the king's sole authority.
  109. And thus, in Israel itself, the chief business of their
judges and first kings seems to have been to be captains in war and
leaders of their armies, which (besides what is signified by "going
out and in before the people," which was, to march forth to war and
home again at the heads of their forces) appears plainly in the
story of Jephtha. The Ammonites making war upon Israel, the
Gileadites, in fear, send to Jephtha, a bastard of their family,
whom they had cast off, and article with him, if he will assist them
against the Ammonites, to make him their ruler, which they do in these
words: "And the people made him head and captain over them" (Judges
11. 11), which was, as it seems, all one as to be judge. "And he
judged Israel" (Judges 12. 7)- that is, was their captain-general-
"six years." So when Jotham upbraids the Shechemites with the
obligation they had to Gideon, who had been their judge and ruler,
he tells them: "He fought for you, and adventured his life for, and
delivered you out of the hands of Midian" (Judges 9. 17). Nothing
mentioned of him but what he did as a general, and, indeed, that is
all is found in his history, or in any of the rest of the judges.
And Abimelech particularly is called king, though at most he was but
their general. And when, being weary of the ill-conduct of Samuel's
sons, the children of Israel desired a king, "like all the nations, to
judge them, and to go out before them, and to fight their battles"
(1 Sam. 8. 20), God, granting their desire, says to Samuel, "I will
send thee a man, and thou shalt anoint him to be captain over my
people Israel, that he may save my people out of the hands of the
Philistines" (ch. 9. 16). As if the only business of a king had been
to lead out their armies and fight in their defence; and, accordingly,
at his inauguration, pouring a vial of oil upon him, declares to
Saul that "the Lord had anointed him to be captain over his
inheritance" (ch. 10. 1). And therefore those who, after Saul being
solemnly chosen and saluted king by the tribes at Mispah, were
unwilling to have him their king, make no other objection but this,
"How shall this man save us?" (ch. 10. 27), as if they should have
said: "This man is unfit to be our king, not having skill and
conduct enough in war to be able to defend us." And when God
resolved to transfer the government to David, it is in these words:
"But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the Lord hath sought Him a
man after His own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain
over His people" (ch. 13. 14.). As if the whole kingly authority
were nothing else but to be their general; and therefore the tribes
who had stuck to Saul's family, and opposed David's reign, when they
came to Hebron with terms of submission to him, they tell him, amongst
other arguments, they had to submit to him as to their king, that he
was, in effect, their king in Saul's time, and therefore they had no
reason but to receive him as their king now. "Also," say they, "in
time past, when Saul was king over us, thou wast he that leddest out
and broughtest in Israel, and the Lord said unto thee, Thou shalt feed
my people Israel, and thou shalt be a captain over Israel."
  110. Thus, whether a family, by degrees, grew up into a
commonwealth, and the fatherly authority being continued on to the
elder son, every one in his turn growing up under it tacitly submitted
to it, and the easiness and equality of it not offending any one,
every one acquiesced till time seemed to have confirmed it and settled
a right of succession by prescription; or whether several families, or
the descendants of several families, whom chance, neighbourhood, or
business brought together, united into society; the need of a
general whose conduct might defend them against their enemies in
war, and the great confidence the innocence and sincerity of that poor
but virtuous age, such as are almost all those which begin governments
that ever come to last in the world, gave men one of another, made the
first beginners of commonwealths generally put the rule into one man's
hand, without any other express limitation or restraint but what the
nature of the thing and the end of government required. It was given
them for the public good and safety, and to those ends, in the
infancies of commonwealths, they commonly used it; and unless they had
done so, young societies could not have subsisted. Without such
nursing fathers, without this care of the governors, all governments
would have sunk under the weakness and infirmities of their infancy,
the prince and the people had soon perished together.
  111. But the golden age (though before vain ambition, and amor
sceleratus habendi, evil concupiscence had corrupted men's minds
into a mistake of true power and honour) had more virtue, and
consequently better governors, as well as less vicious subjects; and
there was then no stretching prerogative on the one side to oppress
the people, nor, consequently, on the other, any dispute about
privilege, to lessen or restrain the power of the magistrate; and so
no contest betwixt rulers and people about governors or government.*
Yet, when ambition and luxury, in future ages, would retain and
increase the power, without doing the business for which it was given,
and aided by flattery, taught princes to have distinct and separate
interests from their people, men found it necessary to examine more
carefully the original and rights of government, and to find out
ways to restrain the exorbitances and prevent the abuses of that
power, which they having entrusted in another's hands, only for
their own good, they found was made use of to hurt them.

  * "At the first, when some certain kind of regimen was once
approved, it may be that nothing was then further thought upon for the
manner of governing, but all permitted unto their wisdom and
discretion, which were to rule till, by experience, they found this
for all parts very inconvenient, so as the thing which they had
devised for a remedy did indeed but increase the sore which it
should have cured. They saw that to live by one man's will became
the cause of all men's misery. This constrained them to come unto laws
wherein all men might see their duty beforehand, and know the
penalties of transgressing them." Hooker, Eccl. Pol. 1. 10.

  112. Thus we may see how probable it is that people that were
naturally free, and, by their own consent, either submitted to the
government of their father, or united together, out of different
families, to make a government, should generally put the rule into one
man's hands, and choose to be under the conduct of a single person,
without so much, as by express conditions, limiting or regulating
his power, which they thought safe enough in his honesty and prudence;
though they never dreamed of monarchy being jure Divino, which we
never heard of among mankind till it was revealed to us by the
divinity of this last age, nor ever allowed paternal power to have a
right to dominion or to be the foundation of all government. And
thus much may suffice to show that, as far as we have any light from
history, we have reason to conclude that all peaceful beginnings of
government have been laid in the consent of the people. I say
"peaceful," because I shall have occasion, in another place, to
speak of conquest, which some esteem a way of beginning of
governments.
  The other objection, I find, urged against the beginning of
polities, in the way I have mentioned, is this, viz.:
  113. "That all men being born under government, some or other, it is
impossible any of them should ever be free and at liberty to unite
together and begin a new one, or ever be able to erect a lawful
government." If this argument be good, I ask, How came so many
lawful monarchies into the world? For if anybody, upon this
supposition, can show me any one man, in any age of the world, free to
begin a lawful monarchy, I will be bound to show him ten other free
men at liberty, at the same time, to unite and begin a new
government under a regal or any other form. It being demonstration
that if any one born under the dominion of another may be so free as
to have a right to command others in a new and distinct empire,
every one that is born under the dominion of another may be so free
too, and may become a ruler or subject of a distinct separate
government. And so, by this their own principle, either all men,
however born, are free, or else there is but one lawful prince, one
lawful government in the world; and then they have nothing to do but
barely to show us which that is, which, when they have done, I doubt
not but all mankind will easily agree to pay obedience to him.
  114. Though it be a sufficient answer to their objection to show
that it involves them in the same difficulties that it doth those they
use it against, yet I shall endeavour to discover the weakness of this
argument a little farther.
  "All men," say they, "are born under government, and therefore
they cannot be at liberty to begin a new one. Every one is born a
subject to his father or his prince, and is therefore under the
perpetual tie of subjection and allegiance." It is plain mankind never
owned nor considered any such natural subjection that they were born
in, to one or to the other, that tied them, without their own
consents, to a subjection to them and their heirs.
  115. For there are no examples so frequent in history, both sacred
and profane, as those of men withdrawing themselves and their
obedience from the jurisdiction they were born under, and the family
or community they were bred up in, and setting up new governments in
other places, from whence sprang all that number of petty
commonwealths in the beginning of ages, and which always multiplied as
long as there was room enough, till the stronger or more fortunate
swallowed the weaker; and those great ones, again breaking to
pieces, dissolved into lesser dominions; all which are so many
testimonies against paternal sovereignty, and plainly prove that it
was not the natural right of the father descending to his heirs that
made governments in the beginning; since it was impossible, upon
that ground, there should have been so many little kingdoms but only
one universal monarchy if men had not been at liberty to separate
themselves from their families and their government, be it what it
will that was set up in it, and go and make distinct commonwealths and
other governments as they thought fit.
  116. This has been the practice of the world from its first
beginning to this day; nor is it now any more hindrance to the freedom
of mankind, that they are born under constituted and ancient
polities that have established laws and set forms of government,
than if they were born in the woods amongst the unconfined inhabitants
that run loose in them. For those who would persuade us that by
being born under any government we are naturally subjects to it, and
have no more any title or pretence to the freedom of the state of
Nature, have no other reason (bating that of paternal power, which
we have already answered) to produce for it, but only because our
fathers or progenitors passed away their natural liberty, and
thereby bound up themselves and their posterity to a perpetual
subjection to the government which they themselves submitted to. It is
true that whatever engagements or promises any one made for himself,
he is under the obligation of them, but cannot by any compact
whatsoever bind his children or posterity. For his son, when a man,
being altogether as free as the father, any act of the father can no
more give away the liberty of the son than it can of anybody else.
He may, indeed, annex such conditions to the land he enjoyed, as a
subject of any commonwealth, as may oblige his son to be of that
community, if he will enjoy those possessions which were his father's,
because that estate being his father's property, he may dispose or
settle it as he pleases.
  117. And this has generally given the occasion to the mistake in
this matter; because commonwealths not permitting any part of their
dominions to be dismembered, nor to be enjoyed by any but those of
their community, the son cannot ordinarily enjoy the possessions of
his father but under the same terms his father did, by becoming a
member of the society, whereby he puts himself presently under the
government he finds there established, as much as any other subject of
that commonweal. And thus the consent of free men, born under
government, which only makes them members of it, being given
separately in their turns, as each comes to be of age, and not in a
multitude together, people take no notice of it, and thinking it not
done at all, or not necessary, conclude they are naturally subjects as
they are men.
  118. But it is plain governments themselves understand it otherwise;
they claim no power over the son because of that they had over the
father; nor look on children as being their subjects, by their fathers
being so. If a subject of England have a child by an Englishwoman in
France, whose subject is he? Not the King of England's; for he must
have leave to be admitted to the privileges of it. Nor the King of
France's, for how then has his father a liberty to bring him away, and
breed him as he pleases; and whoever was judged as a traitor or
deserter, if he left, or warred against a country, for being barely
born in it of parents that were aliens there? It is plain, then, by
the practice of governments themselves, as well as by the law of right
reason, that a child is born a subject of no country nor government.
He is under his father's tuition and authority till he come to age
of discretion, and then he is a free man, at liberty what government
he will put himself under, what body politic he will unite himself to.
For if an Englishman's son born in France be at liberty, and may do
so, it is evident there is no tie upon him by his father being a
subject of that kingdom, nor is he bound up by any compact of his
ancestors; and why then hath not his son, by the same reason, the same
liberty, though he be born anywhere else? Since the power that a
father hath naturally over his children is the same wherever they be
born, and the ties of natural obligations are not bounded by the
positive limits of kingdoms and commonwealths.
  119. Every man being, as has been showed, naturally free, and
nothing being able to put him into subjection to any earthly power,
but only his own consent, it is to be considered what shall be
understood to be a sufficient declaration of a man's consent to make
him subject to the laws of any government. There is a common
distinction of an express and a tacit consent, which will concern
our present case. Nobody doubts but an express consent of any man,
entering into any society, makes him a perfect member of that society,
a subject of that government. The difficulty is, what ought to be
looked upon as a tacit consent, and how far it binds- i.e., how far
any one shall be looked on to have consented, and thereby submitted to
any government, where he has made no expressions of it at all. And
to this I say, that every man that hath any possession or enjoyment of
any part of the dominions of any government doth hereby give his tacit
consent, and is as far forth obliged to obedience to the laws of
that government, during such enjoyment, as any one under it, whether
this his possession be of land to him and his heirs for ever, or a
lodging only for a week; or whether it be barely travelling freely
on the highway; and, in effect, it reaches as far as the very being of
any one within the territories of that government.
  120. To understand this the better, it is fit to consider that every
man when he at first incorporates himself into any commonwealth, he,
by his uniting himself thereunto, annexes also, and submits to the
community those possessions which he has, or shall acquire, that do
not already belong to any other government. For it would be a direct
contradiction for any one to enter into society with others for the
securing and regulating of property, and yet to suppose his land,
whose property is to be regulated by the laws of the society, should
be exempt from the jurisdiction of that government to which he
himself, and the property of the land, is a subject. By the same
act, therefore, whereby any one unites his person, which was before
free, to any commonwealth, by the same he unites his possessions,
which were before free, to it also; and they become, both of them,
person and possession, subject to the government and dominion of
that commonwealth as long as it hath a being. Whoever therefore,
from thenceforth, by inheritance, purchases permission, or otherwise
enjoys any part of the land so annexed to, and under the government of
that commonweal, must take it with the condition it is under- that is,
of submitting to the government of the commonwealth, under whose
jurisdiction it is, as far forth as any subject of it.
  121. But since the government has a direct jurisdiction only over
the land and reaches the possessor of it (before he has actually
incorporated himself in the society) only as he dwells upon and enjoys
that, the obligation any one is under by virtue of such enjoyment to
submit to the government begins and ends with the enjoyment; so that
whenever the owner, who has given nothing but such a tacit consent
to the government will, by donation, sale or otherwise, quit the
said possession, he is at liberty to go and incorporate himself into
any other commonwealth, or agree with others to begin a new one in
vacuis locis, in any part of the world they can find free and
unpossessed; whereas he that has once, by actual agreement and any
express declaration, given his consent to be of any commonweal, is
perpetually and indispensably obliged to be, and remain unalterably
a subject to it, and can never be again in the liberty of the state of
Nature, unless by any calamity the government he was under comes to be
dissolved.
  122. But submitting to the laws of any country, living quietly and
enjoying privileges and protection under them, makes not a man a
member of that society; it is only a local protection and homage due
to and from all those who, not being in a state of war, come within
the territories belonging to any government, to all parts whereof
the force of its law extends. But this no more makes a man a member of
that society, a perpetual subject of that commonwealth, than it
would make a man a subject to another in whose family he found it
convenient to abide for some time, though, whilst he continued in
it, he were obliged to comply with the laws and submit to the
government he found there. And thus we see that foreigners, by
living all their lives under another government, and enjoying the
privileges and protection of it, though they are bound, even in
conscience, to submit to its administration as far forth as any
denizen, yet do not thereby come to be subjects or members of that
commonwealth. Nothing can make any man so but his actually entering
into it by positive engagement and express promise and compact. This
is that which, I think, concerning the beginning of political
societies, and that consent which makes any one a member of any
commonwealth.