Laws are the conditions under which

Laws are the conditions under which men, naturally independent, united themselves in society.
Weary of living in a continual state of war, and of enjoying a liberty which became of little
value, from the uncertainty of its duration, they sacrificed one part of it to enjoy the rest in peace
and security. The sum of all these portions of the liberty of each individual constituted the
sovereignty of a nation; and was deposited in the hands of the sovereign, as the lawful
administrator. But it was not sufficient only to establish this deposit; it was also necessary to
defend it from the usurpation of each individual, who will always endeavour to take away from
the mass, not only his own portion, but to encroach on that of others. Some motives, therefore,
that strike the senses, were necessary to prevent the despotism of each individual from plunging
society into its former chaos. Such motives are the punishment established against the infractors
of the laws. I say that motives of this kind are necessary; because experience shews that, the
multitude adopt no established rules of conduct; and because, society is prevented from
approaching to that dissolution (to which, as well as all other parts of the physical and moral
world, it naturally tends) only by motives that are the immediate objects of sense, and which,
being continually presented to the mind, are sufficient to counterbalance the effects of the
passions of the individual which oppose the general good. Neither the power of eloquence, nor
the sublimest truths, are sufficient to restrain, for any length of time, those passions which are
excited by the lively impression of present objects.