um tulisse, ut quodam
tempore homines, nondum neque naturali neque civili jure descripto,
fusi per agros ac dispersi vagarentur tantumque haberent quantum manu ac
viribus, per caedem ac vulnera, aut eripere aut retinere potuissent?
Qui igitur primi virtute & consilio praestanti extiterunt, ii perspecto
genere humanae docilitatis atque ingenii, dissipatos unum in locum
congregarunt, eosque ex feritate illa ad justitiam ac mansuetudinem
transduxerunt. Tum res ad communem utilitatem, quas publicas appellamus,
tum conventicula hominum, quae postea civitates nominatae sunt, tum
domicilia conjuncta, quas urbes dicamus, invento & divino & humano jure
moenibus sepserunt. Atque inter hanc vitam, perpolitam humanitate, &
llam immanem, nihil tam interest quam JUS atque VIS. Horum utro uti
nolimus, altero est utendum. Vim volumus extingui. Jus valeat necesse
est, idi est, judicia, quibus omne jus continetur. Judicia displicent,
ant nulla sunt. Vis dominetur necesse est. Haec vident omnes.' Pro Sext.
sec. 42.]

Whether such a condition of human nature could ever exist, or if it
did, could continue so long as to merit the appellation of a STATE,
may justly be doubted. Men are necessarily born in a family-society, at
least; and are trained up by their parents to some rule of conduct and
behaviour. But this must be admitted, that, if such a state of mutual
war and violence was ever real, the suspension of all laws of
justice, from their absolute inutility, is a necessary and infallible
consequence.

The more we vary our views of human life, and the newer and more unusual
the lights are in which we survey it, the more shall we be convinced,
that the origin here assigned for the virtue of justice is real and
satisfactory.

Were there a species of creatures intermingled with men, which, though
rational, were possessed of such inferior strength, both of body and
mind, that they were incapable of all resistance, and could never, upon
the highest provocation, make us feel the effects of their resentment;
the necessary consequence, I think, is that we should be bound by the
laws of humanity to give gentle usage to these creatures, but should
not, properly speaking, lie under any restraint of justice with regard
to them, nor could they possess any right or property, exclusive of such
arbitrary lords. Our intercourse with them could not be called society,
which supposes a degree of equality; but absolute command on the one
side, and servile