John Locke :: Empiricists, Empiricism

Property cannot be made secure by natural right alone, and for the better securing of their properties men have entered into civil society. The will of the body politic, when formed, is determined by the will of the majority, and of a bare majority if there be no different express agreement. For this Locke does not give any reason but the necessity of the case; it is certain that much worse ones have been given. As a matter of fact, we now know that a majority vote has not been generally recognized in archaic societies; the difficulty of obtaining nominal unanimity was overcome (as in special cases it still has to be) by various methods, including varying elements of force and fiction. This does not apply to the original agreement to form a society, which is assumed to be unanimous, and includes only the actual parties to it. Any one who stands out may go his ways and provide for himself elsewhere. It would seem that the community is entitled to enforce his departure; it is certain, on Locke's principles, that it has not the right to detain him against his will. Could he agree to stay in an inferior capacity like that of a resident alien? But it is needless to pursue the auxiliary fictions which might be devised. A body politic, then, is formed by consent; the essential term of the agreement is that every member gives up his natural judicial and executive power to the community (not, as Hobbes maintains, to an irresponsible sovereign); and this consent is renewed, tacitly if not expressly, in the person of every new member; for one cannot accept the benefit of a settled government except on those terms on which it is offered. Locke is bold to assert that 'a child is born a subject of no country or government,' and may choose his allegiance for himself at the age of discretion: this is another opinion which no modern lawyer