Rights in Civil Society - Part Three
Chapter 2
Titles of right to govern; those of first acquisition and those of second acquisition
1747. It follows that the title by which a person (individual or collective) may acquire the power to regulate the modality of all the rights of a certain mass of human beings is first of all divisible into two classes, called first acquisition and second acquisition. By `titles of second acquisition' I mean those which transfer such power from one person to another.
1748. The origins of civil governments are as numerous as the titles of first acquisition.
The titles of second acquisition should also be indicated because civil power, when modified by its transference from one person to another, gives rise to at least a new form of government, if not a new society.