632 Dr. Perci'vaPs Notes and llluflrMtom. 



virtue of the coronatlori oath ; and therefore they declined tlie 

 ceremony of a coronation ; probably becaufe, according to ufage, 

 it would have obliged them to an explicit declaration of the 

 duties owing to their fubjefts^ Baron Bielfield, in one of his 

 letters, thus expreffes himfelf. " Frederic I. of Pruflia, had 

 "good reafons iw fubmitting to that ceremony; but liis fuc- 

 " cefibrs receive the crown from the hands of Providence, and 

 " ndt from their fubjedls. They content themfelves with admi- 

 *' niftering the oath of fidelity to the troops, to the nobility, and 

 ♦« to the people." * 



Mr. Hume argues againft the original contraft with much 

 acutenefs : yet he candidly acknowledges, that the confent of 

 the people, where it has place, is tlie befl and fnoft /acred foundation 

 of go-vernment. But the converfe to the beft and moll facred 

 can never be, in any degree, good or facred. If fvdl confent 

 render government moft legitimate, the entire want of it, or 

 abfolute force, muft conlHtute the moft unjuft tyranny. A fcale 

 may thus be formed between thefe extremes, by which the de- 

 gree of legitimacy in every civil eftabliftiment may be eftimated. 



In the Effay on Taxation, 1 have adopted the expreffion 

 soci.'VL UNION, as more comprehenfive than any other, becaufe 

 it involves in it all the rights and duties, that reciprocally belong 

 to the individuals of which it is compofed. The obligation to it 

 is antecedent to compadt, confent, or expediency. It is the 

 ordinance of God, manifefted in the conftitution of our nature. 

 For no man has the moral, though he may have the phyfical 

 power, to withdraw himfelf entirely from the intercourfe of his 

 fellow creatures ; as it would be, in a great degree, the extinftion 

 of being, fo far as relates to virtue and intelleftual improvement, 

 which are the chief objefts of it. Civil polity is a confequence 

 of the fecial union, the mode of which is regulated by tempo- 

 rary expediency, and confirmed by compaft, or confent. But 

 no original compaft, or confent can give permanent validity, 

 to what is inconfiftent with the fundamental principles of the 

 SOCIAL UNION. Salus populi fuprema kx. 



• See Towers's Life of the King of Pruflia, vol. I, pp. 82, 115, 



Note 



