PREFACE.

The legislative and the coercive original: coercive; refers to the power to use force to ensure laws are obeyed. powers are the two hinges upon which the great machine of government turns. The scepter, which is the shepherd’s leading staff, is the emblem of the first; the sword, which serves as a goad to the sheep when they will neither be driven nor led, is the emblem of the latter. The one dictates, the other commands; the first declares what should be done, and the latter sees it executed. It is impossible for man to live without submitting to some government.

For if everyone had been left as their own lawmaker, to be protected only by their own single strength as well as will, no man’s person or property propriety original: propriety; in this period, the word was commonly used to mean "property" or ownership. would have been safe, and millions of mischiefs would have followed in that state of anarchy.

Each man, therefore, at first seeing a necessity of parting with his single power