Hume then critiques the liberal Whig theory of government as deriving its authority only from the consent of the governed, as traced back to an original contract between ruler and people. He agrees with the rudiments of the Whig theory: simple societies can long subsist without government, for it is war between societies that first brings serious social disorder (from conflict over the spoils of war) and then government, with military leaders becoming political leaders at a public assembly. But though government typically originates in a social agreement, promising cannot be its one and only source of authority. For, as Hume has argued, promise-keeping itself originates in a social convention serving the public interest, so that if government serves the public interest by "preserv[ing] order and concord in society", then it gains an authority of its own equivalent to that of promise-keeping. We have a parallel interest in both: promise-keeping is a human invention needed for social cooperation, and government is a human invention needed (in large and advanced societies) for reliably enforcing such practices and thereby preserving social order, with neither invention serving a more general or more significant interest than the other. And the two run parallel morally as well: promise-breaking and anti-government action are both disapproved of primarily from a sense of common interest. Thus there is no sense founding the one in the other. Hume also appeals to the opinions of everyday people (which in questions of morality and other sentimentalist domains "carry with them a peculiar authority, and are, in a great measure, infallible"), who see themselves as born to obedience independently of any promising, tacit or otherwise, even to authoritarian states—an understanding reflected in legal codes on rebellion.
