BOOK III PART II
diately connected with government, and which
may be at once the original motive to its institu-
tion, and the source of our obedience to it. This
interest I find to consist in the security and pro-
tection, which we enjoy in political society, and
which we can never attain, when perfectly free
and independent. As interest, therefore, is the
immediate sanction of government, the one can
have no longer being than the other; and when-
ever the civil magistrate carries his oppression
so far as to render his authority perfectly intol-
erable, we are no longer bound to submit to it.
The cause ceases; the effect must cease also.
So far the conclusion is immediate and di-
rect, concerning the natural obligation which
we have to allegiance. As to the moral obliga-
tion, we may observe, that the maxim would
here be false, that when the cause ceases, the ef-