A Few Lectures on Natural Law

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1844 edition. Excerpt: ...consent, from whence this obligation arises: when he became a member of the society, he consented, either expressly or tacitly, that he would in all instances conform himself to what should be the sense of the greater part of that society, to which he joins himself, so as to become a member of it. "Where the members of a society are equally divided in their opinions upon any point; there is no more weight of reason or of equity on one side than there is on the other. No business therefore can be done: and consequently all things must, upon such an equality of votes, continue in the same state, that they were in before, without having any change made in them. For this reason, says Grotius, where judges are equally divided in their opinions, as to acquitting or condemning a criminal, such criminal is acquitted. And in like manner, where they are equally divided upon a question of property, the possessor keeps the thing in dispute." "But though naturally the business of the society must stop, where the society is equally divided in opinion; yet by mutual agreement this case may be provided for several ways. Some one member of their blessings like the dew of heaven, upon the happy people who enjoy the good fortune of sitting under. their benign and salutary influence. But even when united, they are distinct exertions of the sovereign power; and when distributed into different branches they nevertheless are but parts of the supreme authority, constituting altogether but one great whole. Such then, young gentlemen, I take to be the origin of government: and it would next be an object of amusing speculation, to trace, as far as recorded history and the annals of the human family will enable us, its progress from the earliest...