§. 145. There is another power in every commonwealth which one may call
natural, because it is that which answers to the power every man naturally had
before he entered into society. For though in a commonwealth the members of it
are distinct persons, still, in reference to one another, and, as such, are
governed by the laws of the society, yet, in reference to the rest of mankind,
they make one body, which is, as every member of it before was, still in the
state of Nature with the rest of mankind, so that the controversies that happen
between any man of the society with those that are out of it are managed by the
public, and an injury done to a member of their body engages the whole in the
reparation of it. So that under this consideration the whole community is one
body in the state of Nature in respect of all other states or persons out of
its community.
