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[91] For who of you, O judges, is ignorant that the nature of things has been such, that at one time men, before there was any natural or civil law fully laid down, wandered in a straggling and disorderly manner over the country, and had just that property which they could either seize or keep by their own personal strength and vigour, by means of wounds and bloodshed? Those men, therefore, who showed themselves to be the most eminent for virtue and wisdom, they, having considered the character of men's aptitude for instruction and of their natural disposition, collected into one place those who were previously scattered abroad, and brought them over from their former savage way of life to justice and mildness of manners. Then came those constitutions devised for the utility of man, which we call commonwealths. Then came collections of men which were subsequently called states; then men surrounded with walls sets of houses joined together, which we now call cities, and divine and human laws began to be recognised.


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