Directions: Read the rewritten passage of Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” and answer the questions.

Some writers have so been annoyed by society with the government as to leave little or no distinction between them whereas they are not only different but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants and the government by our wickedness. The former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections and the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages communication and the other creates differences. The first is a supporter, and the last is a punisher.

Society in every state is a blessing, but government even at its best state is but a necessary evil. In its worst state, it is an intolerable one. For when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, our misfortune is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.Government is the badge of lost innocence, and the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the places of paradise. If the impulses of a clear conscience, clear expectations, and irresistibly obeyed officials are there, then man would need no other lawgiver. However, that is not the case because he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest. This, he is induced to do by the same cautiousness which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security should be the true policy from the government, so that it follows whatever form appears most likely to ensure it to us with the least expense and greatest benefit is preferable to all others.

In order to gain a clear and just idea of the design of the government, let us suppose a small number of people settled in some sequestered part of the earth, unconnected with the rest, they will then represent the first peopling of any country or of the world. In this state of natural liberty, society will be their first thought. A thousand reasons will excite them thereto, the strength of one man is so unequal to his wants, and his mind so unfitted for continuous isolation, that he is soon obliged to seek assistance and relief of another. He requires the same. Four or five united people would be able to raise a tolerable dwelling in the midst of a wilderness, but one man might work out of the common period of life without accomplishing anything. When he had chopped for his timber, he could not remove it, nor build with it after it was removed. Therefore, hunger in the meantime would bother him from his work,and every different need calls him in a different way. Disease would disable him from living and reduce him to a state in which he might rather be said to perish than to die.

Thus, necessity would soon form our newly arrived emigrants into society the common blessings of the obligations of law and government unnecessary while they remained perfectly fair to each other. They prevail the first difficulties of emigration which bound them together in a common cause. They will begin to relax in their duty and attachment to each other. This is careless of establishing some form of government to supply the defect of moral virtue.

Some convenient tree will afford them a State-House, under the branches of which, the whole colony may assemble to deliberate on public matters. It is more than probable that their first laws will have the title only of regulations, and be enforced by no other penalty than public disfavor. In this first parliament every man, by natural right, will have a seat.
 

Note

Only spelling mistakes, if any, in the above passage have been corrected. No other corrections, including grammatical, have been made so that the originality of the passage is maintained.