1. Government is an advantageous invention which is necessary in many, but not all, cases. People do not take much of an interest in what is remote from themselves, and for this reason are weak against the temptation of injustice for their own advantage. But in the infancy of society, the possessions of life are few and of little value, so “this weakness is less conspicuous.” An Indian would not be tempted to steal a bow and arrow. The fact that one can hunt and fish better than another is “only casual and temporarty, and will have but small tendency to disturb society.” The author asserts that government is not necessary within a tribe, but only when tribes come into conflict. Here he disagrees with “some philosophers” [apparently Hobbes, and perhaps Plato and Cicero] who hold that “men are utterly incapable of society without government.” When there is conflict within a society without government, people are sensible of the grave consequences of the violation of property, as society provides advantage to the point where they cannot subsist without it. On the other hand, in cases of “foreign war,” the disadvantage of violation of property is not apparent, since the other people are strangers on whom one’s own interests do not depend. Further, people without government degenerate into anarchy (“civil war”), each trying to protect his own interest as much as possible against the alien force. The author gives an analogy where goods are just thrown into a group of people. They will fight over them without regard to the consequences. In the case of foreign war, their own life and limb are at stake, and so people behave the same way. So government is needed as a way to counteract this centifugal force that threatens to tear apart the fabric of society.

2. In the American tribes, men live peaceably among themselves without submission to authority, except in time of war, when there is a temporary leader. This temporary leadership gives them an indication of the advantages of government, and when the tribe gets rich enough to forget their interest in preserving peace and justice, they institute allegiance to a leader. This is “a plausible reason” why initial governments are monarchy. “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.” It is a better explanation than one which takes the model to be the family hierarchy, because society without government is “one of the most natural states of men,” which can survive for many generations. It does so because it takes that long for the riches and possessions to be built up to the point that it disrupts peace and harmony.

3. Justice, with its three fundamental laws of stability of possession, transfer of possession by consent, and performance of promises, is required for any society at all. So it applies before anyone has thought of allegiance to civil magistrates. The author goes further and maintains that the authority in the first governments is based on the law of promise-keeping. “When men have once perceiv’d the necessity of government to maintain peace, and execute justice, they wou’d naturally assemble together, wou’d choose magistrates, determine their power, and promise them obedience.” Promise is a source of obligation already in use, and so it can be carried over to the new arrangement. The author notes that a contemporary political party [the Whigs, who promoted the power of parliament over the monarch] makes this the basis of its platform. Government is only established by consent, on their view, and are bound to obey only because they have promised to. But this is not correct, since when the advantage of government eventually become fully known and acknowledged, “it immediately takes root of itself, and has an original obligation and authority, independent of all contracts.” This claim must be examined further.

4. The view that government is based on promise is reasonable for those who take justice “to be a natural virtue, and antecedent to human conventions.” They recognize that government is invented by men, and so they have to “mount higher, [than government itself] in order to find the source of our political duties.” They find the original laws noted in the last paragraph, and take them to be natural. Then the “seek to ingraft on them those other duties, which are more plainly artificial.” Once we are undeceived in the matter of the original laws, and recognize them to be artificial, we see that the laws are not higher principles after all: they “are exactly on the same footing, and have the same source both of their first invention, and moral obligation. Both are created as remedies of similar inconveniences, and they acquire their moral sanctions by remedying them. These two points will be proved “as distinctly as possible.”

5. The author recapitulates his explanation of the three fundamental laws of nature. They are invented to restrain natural appetites or self-love. When they are no longer effective in “large and polish’d societies,” government is formed in the service of upholding the laws of nature against the new stresses on them. This means that the obligation of promising is now the effect of the institution of government, rather than vice-versa. Both of them originally are motivated by self-interest (though civil and natural law are more dignified and forceful). There is a separate interest in maintaining government, so there is a separate obligation. “To obey the civil magistrate is requisite to preserver order and concord in society. To perform promises is requisite to beget mutual trust and confidence in the common offices of life. The ends, as well as the means, are perfectly distinct; nor is the one subordinate to the other.”

6. The author gives an abstract model for the emergence of the separate obligation to the magistrate. People make promises to one another in many cases where they already have an interest in doing what they have promised, in order to give a fuller sense of security to the promisee. There is not only a moral obligation to keep promises, but a practical value to it in order to reassure people in the face of suspicion that one will act contrary to their other interests [i.e., besides the interests in keeping the promise]. Now suppose those other interests were not doubtful, but rather “as general and avow’d as the interest in the performance of a promise.” In that case, “they will be regarded as on the same footing, and men will begin to repose the same confidence in them.” This is exactly what happens when government comes into being. Our interests in preserving society in the face of many things to fight over are as steady as our interests in keeping promises, and are derived from exactly the same source. “In short, if the performance of promises be advantageous, so is obedience to government: If the former interest be general, so is the latter: If the one interest be obvious and avow’d, so is the other.” So both promise-keeping and government are the basis of separate, independent obligations.

7. The foregoing argument concerns that natural obligations of interest. The moral obligations of honor (in allegiance) and conscience (in promising) are also independent. “Nor does the merit or demerit of the one depend in the least upon that of the other.” In the author’s system, merit and demerit are conferred as the result of approval or disapproval. The author explains why we disapprove of sedition, the worst breach of honor to the government. At times, our own immediate interests blind us to our remote interests in peace and security. But we will not be so blinded with respect to the actions of others, which shows them “in their true colours, as highly prejudicial to our own interest, or at least to that of the public, which we partake of by sympathy.” We have an uneasy reaction to seditious behavior and attach “the idea of vice and moral deformity.” The same principal applies in breach of promises: we can be blind to our larger interests because of our immediate interests, but not blind to them in the behavior of others. We are uneasy because “we consider, that the freedom and extent of human commerce depend entirely on a fidelity with regard to promises.” Each of the two breaches, then, causes uneasiness in our own way. “As there are here two interests entirely distinct from each other, they must give rise to two moral obligations, equally separate and independent.” If promises did not exist, government would still serve our interests, while if government did not exist (in a bountiful society) to back of promises, they would have little efficacy. This shows that private duties are more dependent on public duties than vice-versa. Education and the artifices of politicians are, therefore, more directed at the inculcation of the public virtue of loyalty. The interests of politicians is also closely tied to loyalty to government, and so they are especially motivated in this respect.

8. Although the author thinks these arguments are conclusive, he will “have recourse to authority, and shall prove, from the universal consent of mankind, that the obligation of submission to government is not deriv’d from any promise of the subjects.” This seems a surprising departure from the author’s consistent appeals to “pure reason,” in that he is enlisting the “sentiments of the rabble.” This is a singular case where common opinion carries a legitimate authority, to the extent that it is “in great measure, infallible.” There is great uniformity in these opinions, and they are authoritative because the sentiments of pleasure and pain are the basis for all moral assessment, so “it follows, that there is just so much vice or virtue in any character, as every one places in it, and that ’ts impossible in this particular we can ever be mistaken.” In the case of promises, everyone knows the origin of the obligation (though not in the philosophical sense). That is, they know how it is that they have become committed to the particular act they are under an obligation to perform. Now take the case of government. People know they are committed to obey the magistrate. But nobody knows that we are committed to allegiance to the monarch by virtue of having made a promise to be loyal to him, unless they have been “led astray by too strict adherence to a system of philosophy.” This holds for both magistrates and their subjects.

9. Magistrates do not reveal that they are owed loyalty by virtue of some promise that has been made. Even if the promise is a tacit one, because tacit promises have little influence compared to promises made openly. In any case, tacitness has to do with a commitment made non-verbally. Ask any of the subjects whether they have made any commitment at all, and “they wou’d be inclin’d to think very strangely of you; and wou’d certainly reply, that the affair depended not on their consent, but that they were born to such an obedience.” People think of the magistrate more as their natural ruler on the basis of his being in a line of succession of a ruling family, even if they would never choose him to be their ruler and he is at present not even in a position of power and authority. They cannot remember having given their promise, and if one had been made, it would have been made by people long since dead. “Has government, then, no authority over such as these, because they never consented to it, and wou’d esteem the very attempt of a free choice a piece of arrogance and impiety?” One might argue that dwelling within a country establishes tacit consent, but few or no people outside of philosophers have ever thought of such a thing. The author counters this by describing an act of rebellion by someone who has just come of age. As soon as he is in a position to make a decision, he chooses not to accept the authority of the government. Such a disloyal person is punished in the same way as any other criminal. However, if government is based on consent, then he ought to be given a period of time in which he at least tacitly consents to the government, in which case his later disloyalty would then be the breaking of a promise. Another consideration is that someone living under an absolute government [with no representative element such as parliament] “wou’d owe it no allegiance; since, by its very nature, it depends not on consent.” Yet this is as natural and common a government as any, and so it must have some obligation; at least people living under such a government think they are obliged to it. The author regards this as “a clear proof” that common opinion is not of the view that government is by consent or promise. Another proof is that people commonly separate obligations of honor or allegiance. Breaking a promise is not disloyal, and disloyalty does not imply breaking promises in private matters. “As the uniting of them was thought by these philosophers a very subtile invention, this is a convincing proof, that ’tis not a true one; since no man can either give a promise, or be restrain’d by its sanction and obligation unknown to himself.”

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