Philosophical Works, v. 2 (of 4): Including All the Essays, and Exhibiting the More Important Alterations and Corrections in the Successive Editions Published by the AuthorHume, David
PhilosophyPhilosophy
Philosophical Works, v. 2 (of 4): Including All the Essays, and Exhibiting the More Important Alterations and Corrections in the Successive Editions Published by the Author
Hume, David
Knowledge, Theory of; Philosophy, English -- 18th century
This we find verified in the American tribes, where men live in concord
and amity among themselves, without any established government, and
never pay submission to any of their fellows, except in time of war,
when their captain enjoys a shadow of authority, which he loses after
their return from the field and the establishment of peace with the
neighbouring tribes. This authority, however, instructs them in the
advantages of government, and teaches them to have recourse to it,
when, either by the pillage of war, by commerce, or by any fortuitous
inventions, their riches and possessions have become so considerable
as to make them forget, on every emergence, the interest they have in
the preservation of peace and justice. Hence we may give a plausible
reason, among others, why all governments are at first monarchical,
without any mixture and variety; and why republics arise only from the
abuses of monarchy and despotic power. Camps are the true mothers of
cities; and as war cannot be administered, by reason of the suddenness
of every exigency, without some authority in a single person, the same
kind of authority naturally takes place in that civil government which
succeeds the military. And this reason I take to be more natural than
the common one derived from patriarchal government, or the authority
of a father, which is said first to take place in one family, and to
accustom the members of it to the government of a single person. The
state of society without government is one of the most natural states
of men, and must subsist with the conjunction of many families, and
long after the first generation. Nothing but an increase of riches
and possessions could oblige men to quit it; and so barbarous and
uninstructed are all societies on their first formation, that many
years must elapse before these can increase to such a degree as to
disturb men in the enjoyment of peace and concord.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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