Page:A discourse upon the origin and foundation of the inequality among mankind (IA discourseuponori00rous).pdf/207

and it is no matter which of theſe Cauſes we adopt in regard to what I am going to eſtabliſh: that however, which I have juſt laid down, ſeems to me the moſt natural, for the following Reaſons. 1ſt, Becauſe, in the firſt Caſe, the Right of Conqueſt being in Fact no Right at all, it could not ſerve as a Foundation for any other Right, the Conqueror and the Conquered ever remaining with reſpect to each other in a State of War, unleſs the Conquered, reſtored to the full Poſſeſſion of their Liberty, ſhould freely chuſe their Conqueror for their Chief. Till then, whatever Capitulations might have been made between them, as theſe Capitulations were founded upon Violence, and of courſe de facto null and void, there could not have exiſted in this Hypothesis either a true Society, or a political Body, or any other Law but that of the Strongeſt. 2dly, Becauſe theſe Words Strong and Weak, are ambiguous in the ſecond Caſe;