BOOK III PART II
A promise fixes and determines the persons,
without any uncertainty: But it is evident, that
if men were to regulate their conduct in this
particular, by the view of a peculiar interest,
either public or private, they would involve
themselves in endless confusion, and would
render all government, in a great measure, inef-
fectual. The private interest of every one is dif-
ferent; and though the public interest in itself
be always one and the same, yet it becomes the
source of as great dissentions, by reason of the
different opinions of particular persons con-
cerning it. The same interest, therefore, which
causes us to submit to magistracy, makes us re-
nounce itself in the choice of our magistrates,
and binds us down to a certain form of gov-
ernment, and to particular persons, without al-
lowing us to aspire to the utmost perfection in
either. The case is here the same as in that law