CASE OF THE POST-NATI OF SCOTLAND. 115 



But I demand, Do these offices or operations of 

 law evacuate or frustrate the original submission, 

 which was natural ? Or shall it be said that all 

 allegiance is by law ? No more than it can be said, 

 that &quot; potestas patris,&quot; the power of the father over 

 the child, is by law ; and yet no doubt laws do di 

 versely define of that also ; the law of some nations 

 having given the fathers power to put their children 

 to death ; others, to sell them thrice ; others, to 

 disinherit them by testament at pleasure, and the 

 like. Yet no man will affirm, that the obedience of 

 the child is by law, though laws in some points do 

 make it more positive : and even so it is of allegiance 

 of subjects to hereditary monarchs, which is corrobo 

 rated and confirmed by law, but is the work of the 

 law of nature. And therefore you shall find the 

 observation true, and almost general in all states, 

 that their lawgivers were long after their first kings, 

 who governed for a time by natural equity without 

 law : so was Theseus long before Solon in Athens . 

 so was Eurytion and Sous long before Lycurgus in 

 Sparta : so was Romulus long before the Decem 

 viri. And even amongst ourselves there were more 

 ancient kings of the Saxons ; and yet the laws 

 ran under the name of Edgar s laws. And in the 

 refounding of the kingdom in the person of William 

 the Conqueror, when the laws were in some confusion 

 for a time, a man may truly say, that king Edward I. 

 was the first lawgiver, who enacting some laws, and 

 collecting others, brought the law to some perfection. 

 And therefore I will conclude this point with the 



