"

The Month of February, you fee, will be here left out; but you can easily remember that it confifts generally of only twenty-eight days, but on the biffextile, or Leap-year, of twenty-nine,

The old Almanack lines answer the fame purpose, too.

"Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November;

.

"And all the reft have thirty-one, Excepting February alone."

66

CHAP. XLVII.

STATE OF NATURE.

appears to me very strange that Hobbes and Locke fhould both agree in this idea, that justice is but the offspring of political law. Montefquieu fays, very well," that to affirm juftice "and injuftice to have taken their rife "from pofitive inftitution, only, is to

fay, that before the first tracing of a

circle, the radii were not equal." Was logic or reason first?

The writers on Government certainly carry their prejudices too far, in denying the obligation of moral duties, to a ftate of nature. They are not aware

how

how dangerous a thing it is to dif tinguish between polity and ethics. This is, in effect, to fap the very foundation of all Government itself.

A ftate of nature is a peaceable one: there were no wars among men, till after the establishment of fociety. We quarrel not for general property, but for exclufive poffeffions.

The state of nature is a focial one, and Legislation but the refult of this affociation. The firft arifes from the paffions and affections of mankind, and the latter from the reafon and expediency of the thing itself not to create juftice, but to guard against in juftice. But neither of them are the

con