fatherhood, that it is the “sole fountain of all power”: for if Adam had any such regal power over Eve as our author contends for, it must be by some other title than that of begetting.
But I leave him to reconcile these contradictions, as well as many others, which may plentifully be found in him by anyone, who will but read him with a little attention; and shall come now to consider, how these two originals of government, “Adam’s natural and private dominion,” will consist and serve to make out and establish the titles of succeeding monarchs, who, as our author obliges them, must all derive their power from these fountains. Let us then suppose Adam made, “by God’s donation,” lord and sole proprietor of the whole earth, in as large and ample a manner as Sir Robert could wish; let us suppose him also, “by right of fatherhood,” absolute ruler over his children with an unlimited supremacy; I ask then, upon Adam’s death, what becomes of both his natural and private dominion? and I doubt not it will be answered, that they descended to his next heir, as our author tells us in several places. 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, O. 156, That “every man that is born, by his very birth, becomes a subject to him that begets him,” this necessarily follows, viz. That a man by his birth cannot become a subject to his brother, who did not beget him; unless it can be supposed that a man by the very same