BOOK III PART II
the true mothers of cities; and as war can-
not be administered, by reason of the sudden-
ness of every exigency, without some author-
ity in a single person, the same kind of author-
ity naturally takes place in that civil govern-
ment, which succeeds the military. And this
reason I take to be more natural, than the com-
mon one derived from patriarchal government,
or the authority of a father, which is said first
to take place in one family, and to accustom
the members of it to the government of a sin-
gle person. The state of society without gov-
ernment is one of the most natural states of
men, and must submit with the conjunction of
many families, and long after the first gener-
ation. Nothing but an encrease of riches and
possessions coued oblige men to quit it; and
so barbarous and uninstructed are all societies
on their first formation, that many years must