But this way, it is plain, cannot possibly convey both his natural and private dominion to the same person: for should we allow that all the property, all the estate of the father, ought to descend to the eldest son (which will need some proof to establish it), and so he has by that title all the private dominion of the father, yet the father’s natural dominion, the paternal power, cannot descend to him by inheritance: for it being a right that accrues to a man only by begetting, no man can have this natural dominion over anyone he does not beget; unless it can be supposed, that a man can have a right to anything, without doing that upon which that right is solely founded: for if a father by begetting, and no other title, has natural dominion over his children, he that does not beget them cannot have this natural dominion over them; and therefore be it true or false, that our author says,