The ostracism could not very
long save itself, and much less the state which it was meant to guard,
from the attempts of ambition,--one of the natural, inbred, incurable
distempers of a powerful democracy.
But to return from this short digression,--which, however, is not wholly
foreign to the question of the effect of the will of the majority upon
the form or the existence of their society. I cannot too often recommend
it to the serious consideration of all men who think civil society to be
within the province of moral jurisdiction, that, if we owe to it any
duty, it is not subject to our will. Duties are not voluntary. Duty and
will are even contradictory terms. Now, though civil society might be at
first a voluntary act, (which in many cases it undoubtedly was,) its
continuance is under a permanent standing covenant, coexisting with the
society; and it attaches upon every individual of that society, without
any formal act of his own. This is warranted by the general practice,
arising out of the general sense of mankind. Men without their choice
derive benefits from that association; without their choice they are
subjected to duties in consequence of these benefits; and without their
choice they enter into a virtual obligation as binding as any that is
actual.
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