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Hume's Political Discourses

Note 108 — OF THE ORIGINAL CONTRACT.

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The only passage I meet with in antiquity where the obligation of obedience to government is ascribed to a promise is in Plato—in Critone, where Socrates refuses to escape from prison, because he had tacitly promised to obey the laws. Thus he builds a Tory consequence of passive obedience on a Whig foundation of the original contract.

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