on and that one could, as he was to do in his Second Treatise of Government, demonstrate the validity of the social compacts on which human societies were based and the limitations that such consent placed on rulers.
But human beings are corruptible by nature and even if they can grasp the basic elements of natural law through reason, they are easily led by selfish interests to engage in the exercise of power to secure for themselves property--ranging from real property to aspects of an individual's person such as life, liberty, and religion--that belongs to others. This tendency produced the need for people to form the social contracts that are the basis of societies. Thus even though he is free in the state of nature man "will part within his freedom . . . give up this empire, and subject himself to the dominion and control" of a power outside himself because the enjoyment of his freedom is very uncertain outside the state of nature (65). But, even though rulers hold power only through the consent of the rul
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