§. 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.
