§. 175. THOUGH governments can originally have no other rise than that before
mentioned, nor polities be founded on anything but the consent of the people,
yet such have been the disorders ambition has filled the world with, that in
the noise of war, which makes so great a part of the history of mankind, this
consent is little taken notice of; and, therefore, many have mistaken the force
of arms for the consent of the people, and reckon conquest as one of the
originals of government. But conquest is as far from setting up any government
as demolishing a house is from building a new one in the place. Indeed, it
often makes way for a new frame of a commonwealth by destroying the former;
but, without the consent of the people, can never erect a new one.
