HKB
1 passages · search this phrase →
Often appears with: prince of orange succession · political legitimacy and consent · monarchy and royal succession · julius caesar · hugh capet and cromwell
Usually: argument (1) · detachment (1)
“Time and custom give authority to all forms of government, and all successions of princes; and that power, which at first was founded only on injustice and violence, becomes in time legal and obligatory.” David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature · observation
Hume claims that even if the Prince of Orange’s title was once disputed, custom makes succession lawful over time, and later legitimacy is imagined as flowing backward to predecessors.
take advantage of such properties, and to chuse the magistrates either in or out of a line, according as the vulgar will most naturally attribute authority and right to them. Secondly, Though the accession of the Prince of Orange to the throne might at first give occasion to many disputes, and his title be contested, it ought not now to appear doubtful, but must have acquired a sufficient authority from those three …