§. 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.
