the latter is absolutely requisite to the well-being of mankind
and existence of society. When we abstract from this circumstance
(for it is too apparent ever to be overlooked) it must be
confessed, that all regards to right and property, seem entirely
without foundation, as much as the grossest and most vulgar
superstition. Were the interests of society nowise concerned, it
is as unintelligible why another's articulating certain sounds
implying consent, should change the nature of my actions with
regard to a particular object, as why the reciting of a liturgy
by a priest, in a certain habit and posture, should dedicate a
heap of brick and timber, and render it, thenceforth and for
ever, sacred.



[Footnote: It is evident, that the will or consent alone never
transfers property, nor causes the obligation of a promise (for
the same reasoning extends to both), but the will must be
expressed by words or signs, in order to impose a tie upon any
man. The expression being once brought in as subservient to he
will, soon becomes the principal part of the promise; nor will a
man be less bound by his word, though he secretly give a
different direction to his intention, and withhold the assent of
his mind. But though the expression makes, on most occasions, the
whole of the promise, yet it does not always so; and one who
should make use of any expression, of which he knows not the
meaning, and which he uses without any sense of the consequences,
would not certainly be bound by it. Nay, though he know its
meaning, yet if he use it in jest only, and with such signs as
evidently show, that he has no serious intention of binding