[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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