Howbeit, this is not the only kind of regimen that has been received
in the world. The inconveniencies of one kind have caused sundry
others to be devised, so that, in a word, all public regimen, of
what kind soever, seemeth evidently to have risen from the
deliberate advice, consultation and composition between men, judging
it convenient and behoveful, there being no impossibility in Nature,
considered by itself, but that man might have lived without any public
regimen." Hooker, Eccl. Pol., i. 10.
75. Thus it was easy and almost natural for children, by a tacit and
almost natural consent, to make way for the father's authority and
government. They had been accustomed in their childhood to follow
his direction, and to refer their little differences to him; and
when they were men, who was fitter to rule them? Their little
properties and less covetousness seldom afforded greater
controversies; and when any should arise, where could they have a
fitter umpire than he, by whose care they had every one been sustained
and brought up. and who had a tenderness for them all? It is no wonder
that they made no distinction betwixt minority and full age, nor
looked after one-and-twenty, or any other age, that might make them
the free disposers of themselves and fortunes, when they could have no
desire to be out of their pupilage.
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