BOOK III PART II
find by experience, that it punishes them very
freely for what it calls treason and rebellion,
which, it seems, according to this system, re-
duces itself to common injustice. If you say,
that by dwelling in its dominions, they in ef-
fect consented to the established government; I
answer, that this can only be, where they think
the affair depends on their choice, which few
or none, beside those philosophers, have ever
yet imagined. It never was pleaded as an ex-
cuse for a rebel, that the first act he perform
d, after he came to years of discretion, was to
levy war against the sovereign of the state; and
that while he was a child he coued not bind
himself by his own consent, and having be-
come a man, showed plainly, by the first act
he performed, that he had no design to impose
on himself any obligation to obedience. We
find, on the contrary, that civil laws punish this