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DRAGONMOUNT

A WHEEL OF TIME COMMUNITY

Locke


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PREFACE

 

Reader, thou hast here the beginning and end of a discourse concerning

government; what fate has otherwise disposed of the papers that should

have filled up the middle, and were more than all the rest, it is not

worth while to tell thee.  These, which remain, I hope are sufficient to

establish the throne of our great restorer, our present King William; to

make good his title, in the consent of the people, which being the only

one of all lawful governments, he has more fully and clearly, than any

prince in Christendom; and to justify to the world the people of England,

whose love of their just and natural rights, with their resolution to

preserve them, saved the nation when it was on the very brink of slavery

and ruin.  If these papers have that evidence, I flatter myself is to be

found in them, there will be no great miss of those which are lost, and

my reader may be satisfied without them: for I imagine, I shall have

neither the time, nor inclination to repeat my pains, and fill up the

wanting part of my answer, by tracing Sir Robert again, through all the

windings and obscurities, which are to be met with in the several

branches of his wonderful system.  The king, and body of the nation, have

since so thoroughly confuted his Hypothesis, that I suppose no body

hereafter will have either the confidence to appear against our common

safety, and be again an advocate for slavery; or the weakness to be

deceived with contradictions dressed up in a popular stile, and

well-turned periods: for if any one will be at the pains, himself, in

those parts, which are here untouched, to strip Sir Robert's discourses

of the flourish of doubtful expressions, and endeavour to reduce his

words to direct, positive, intelligible propositions, and then compare

them one with another, he will quickly be satisfied, there was never so

much glib nonsense put together in well-sounding English.  If he think it

not worth while to examine his works all thro', let him make an

experiment in that part, where he treats of usurpation; and let him try,

whether he can, with all his skill, make Sir Robert intelligible, and

consistent with himself, or common sense.  I should not speak so plainly

of a gentleman, long since past answering, had not the pulpit, of late

years, publicly owned his doctrine, and made it the current divinity of

the times.  It is necessary those men, who taking on them to be teachers,

have so dangerously misled others, should be openly shewed of what

authority this their Patriarch is, whom they have so blindly followed,

that so they may either retract what upon so ill grounds they have

vented, and cannot be maintained; or else justify those principles which

they preached up for gospel; though they had no better an author than an

English courtier: for I should not have writ against Sir Robert, or taken

the pains to shew his mistakes, inconsistencies, and want of (what he so

much boasts of, and pretends wholly to build on) scripture-proofs, were

there not men amongst us, who, by crying up his books, and espousing his

doctrine, save me from the reproach of writing against a dead adversary.

They have been so zealous in this point, that, if I have done him any

wrong, I cannot hope they should spare me.  I wish, where they have done

the truth and the public wrong, they would be as ready to redress it, and

allow its just weight to this reflection, viz. that there cannot be done

a greater mischief to prince and people, than the propagating wrong

notions concerning government; that so at last all times might not have

reason to complain of the Drum Ecclesiastic.  If any one, concerned

really for truth, undertake the confutation of my Hypothesis, I promise

him either to recant my mistake, upon fair conviction; or to answer his

difficulties.  But he must remember two things.

        First, That cavilling here and there, at some expression, or little

incident of my discourse, is not an answer to my book.

        Secondly, That I shall not take railing for arguments, nor think

either of these worth my notice, though I shall always look on myself as

bound to give satisfaction to any one, who shall appear to be

conscientiously scrupulous in the point, and shall shew any just grounds

for his scruples.

        I have nothing more, but to advertise the reader, that Observations

stands for Observations on Hobbs, Milton, &c. and that a bare quotation

of pages always means pages of his Patriarcha, Edition 1680.

 

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OF CIVIL-GOVERNMENT

 

                                Book II

 

        Chap. I. Sect. 1. It having been shewn in the foregoing discourse,

        1. That Adam had not, either by natural right of fatherhood, or by

positive donation from God, any such authority over his children, or

dominion over the world, as is pretended:

        2. That if he had, his heirs, yet, had no right to it:

        3. That if his heirs had, there being no law of nature nor positive

law of God that determines which is the right heir in all cases that may

arise, the right of succession, and consequently of bearing rule, could

not have been certainly determined:

        4. That if even that had been determined, yet the knowledge of which

is the eldest line of Adam's posterity, being so long since utterly lost,

that in the races of mankind and families of the world, there remains not

to one above another, the least pretence to be the eldest house, and to

have the right of inheritance:

  All these premises having, as I think, been clearly made out, it is

impossible that the rulers now on earth should make any benefit, or

derive any the least shadow of authority from that, which is held to be

the fountain of all power, Adam's private dominion and paternal

jurisdiction; so that he that will not give just occasion to think that

all government in the world is the product only of force and violence,

and that men live together by no other rules but that of beasts, where

the strongest carries it, and so lay a foundation for perpetual disorder

and mischief, tumult, sedition and rebellion, (things that the followers

of that hypothesis so loudly cry out against) must of necessity find out

another rise of government, another original of political power, and

another way of designing and knowing the persons that have it, than what

Sir Robert Filmer hath taught us.

        Sect. 2. To this purpose, I think it may not be amiss, to set down

what I take to be political power; that the power of a MAGISTRATE over a

subject may be distinguished from that of a FATHER over his children, a

MASTER over his servant, a HUSBAND over his wife, and a LORD over his

slave.  All which distinct powers happening sometimes together in the

same man, if he be considered under these different relations, it may

help us to distinguish these powers one from wealth, a father of a

family, and a captain of a galley.

        Sect. 3. POLITICAL POWER, then, I take to be a RIGHT of making laws

with penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties, for the

regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the

community, in the execution of such laws, and in the defence of the

common-wealth from foreign injury; and all this only for the public

good.

 

 

 

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C H A P. II.

 

                      Of the State of Nature.

 

        Sect. 4. TO understand political power right, and derive it from its

original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that

is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of

their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of

the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of

any other man.        A state also of equality, wherein all the power and

jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being

nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank,

promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of

the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without

subordination or subjection, unless the lord and master of them all

should, by any manifest declaration of his will, set one above another,

and confer on him, by an evident and clear appointment, an undoubted

right to dominion and sovereignty.

        Sect. 5. This equality of men by nature, the judicious Hooker looks

upon as so evident in itself, and beyond all question, that he makes it

the foundation of that obligation to mutual love amongst men, on which he

builds the duties they owe one another, and from whence he derives the

great maxims of justice and charity. His words are, The like natural

inducement hath brought men to know that it is no less their duty, to

love others than themselves; for seeing those things which are equal,

must  needs all have one measure; if I cannot but wish to receive good,

even as much at every man's hands, as any man can wish unto his own soul,

how should I look to have any part of my desire herein satisfied, unless

myself be careful to satisfy the like desire, which is undoubtedly  in

other men, being of one and the same nature? To have any thing offered

them repugnant to this desire, must needs in all respects grieve them as

much as me; so that if I do harm, I must look to suffer, there being no

reason that others should shew greater measure of love to me, than they

have by me shewed unto them: my desire therefore to be loved of my equals

in nature as much as possible may be, imposeth upon me a natural duty of

bearing to them-ward fully the like affection; from which relation of

equality between ourselves and them that are as ourselves, what several

rules and canons natural reason hath drawn, for direction of life, no man

is ignorant, Eccl. Pol. Lib. 1.

        Sect. 6. But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state

of licence: though man in that state have an uncontroulable liberty to

dispose of his person or possessions, yet he has not liberty to destroy

himself, or so much as any creature in his possession, but where some

nobler use than its bare preservation calls for it.  The state of nature

has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason,

which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that

being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his

life, health, liberty, or possessions: for men being all the workmanship

of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker; all the servants of one

sovereign master, sent into the world by his order, and about his

business; they are his property, whose workmanship they are, made to last

during his, not one another's pleasure: and being furnished with like

faculties, sharing all in one community of nature, there cannot be

supposed any such subordination among us, that may authorize us to

destroy one another, as if we were made for one another's uses, as the

inferior ranks of creatures are for our's.  Every one, as he is bound to

preserve himself, and not to quit his station wilfully, so by the like

reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as

much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not, unless it

be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what

tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or

goods of another.

  Sect. 7.  And that all men may be restrained from invading others

rights, and from doing hurt to one another, and the law of nature be

observed, which willeth the peace and preservation of all mankind, the

execution of the law of nature is, in that state, put into every man's

hands, whereby every one has a right to punish the transgressors of that

law to such a degree, as may hinder its violation: for the law of nature

would, as all other laws that concern men in this world 'be in vain, if

there were no body that in the state of nature had a power to execute

that law, and thereby preserve the innocent and restrain offenders.  And

if any one in the state of nature may punish another for any evil he has

done, every one may do so: for in that state of perfect equality, where

naturally there is no superiority or jurisdiction of one over another,

what any may do in prosecution of that law, every one must needs have a

right to do.

        Sect. 8. And thus, in the state of nature, one man comes by a power

over another; but yet no absolute or arbitrary power, to use a criminal,

when he has got him in his hands, according to the passionate heats, or

boundless extravagancy of his own will; but only to retribute to him, so

far as calm reason and conscience dictate, what is proportionate to his

transgression, which is so much as may serve for reparation and

restraint: for these two are the only reasons, why one man may lawfully

do harm to another, which is that we call punishment. In transgressing

the law of nature, the offender declares himself to live by another rule

than that of reason and common equity, which is that measure God has set

to the actions of men, for their mutual security; and so he becomes

dangerous to mankind, the tye, which is to secure them from injury and

violence, being slighted and broken by him.  Which being a trespass

against the whole species, and the peace and safety of it, provided for

by the law of nature, every man upon this score, by the right he hath to

preserve mankind in general, may restrain, or where it is necessary,

destroy things noxious to them, and so may bring such evil on any one,

who hath transgressed that law, as may make him repent the doing of it,

and thereby deter him, and by his example others, from doing the like

mischief.  And in the case, and upon this ground, EVERY MAN HATH A RIGHT

TO PUNISH THE OFFENDER, AND BE EXECUTIONER OF THE LAW OF NATURE.

        Sect. 9. 1 doubt not but this will seem a very strange doctrine to

some men: but before they condemn it, I desire them to resolve me, by

what right any prince or state can put to death, or punish an alien, for

any crime he commits in their country.  It is certain their laws, by

virtue of any sanction they receive from the promulgated will of the

legislative, reach not a stranger: they speak not to him, nor, if they

did, is he bound to hearken to them.  The legislative authority, by which

they are in force over the subjects of that commonwealth, hath no power

over him.  Those who have the supreme power of making laws in England,

France or Holland, are to an Indian, but like the rest of the world, men

without authority: and therefore, if by the law of nature every man hath

not a power to punish offences against it, as he soberly judges the case

to require, I see not how the magistrates of any community can punish an

alien of another country; since, in reference to him, they can have no

more power than what every man naturally may have over another.

        Sect, 10. Besides the crime which consists in violating the law, and

varying from the right rule of reason, whereby a man so far becomes

degenerate, and declares himself to quit the principles of human nature,

and to be a noxious creature, there is commonly injury done to some

person or other, and some other man receives damage by his transgression:

in which case he who hath received any damage, has, besides the right of

punishment common to him with other men, a particular right to seek

reparation from him that has done it: and any other person, who finds it

just, may also join with him that is injured, and assist him in

recovering from the offender so much as may make satisfaction for the

harm he has suffered.

        Sect. 11. From these two distinct rights, the one of punishing the

crime for restraint, and preventing the like offence, which right of

punishing is in every body; the other of taking reparation, which belongs

only to the injured party, comes it to pass that the magistrate, who by

being magistrate hath the common right of punishing put into his hands,

can often, where the public good demands not the execution of the law,

remit the punishment of criminal offences by his own authority, but yet

cannot remit the satisfaction due to any private man for the damage he

has received.  That, he who has suffered the damage has a right to demand

in his own name, and he alone can remit: the damnified person has this

power of appropriating to himself the goods or service of the offender,

by right of self-preservation, as every man has a power to punish the

crime, to prevent its being committed again, by the right he has of

preserving all mankind, and doing all reasonable things he can in order

to that end: and thus it is, that every man, in the state of nature, has

a power to kill a murderer, both to deter others from doing the like

injury, which no reparation can compensate, by the example of the

punishment that attends it from every body, and also to secure men from

the attempts of a criminal, who having renounced reason, the common rule

and measure God hath given to mankind, hath, by the unjust violence and

slaughter he hath committed upon one, declared war against all mankind,

and therefore may be destroyed as a lion or a tyger, one of those wild

savage beasts, with whom men can have no society nor security: and upon

this is grounded that great law of nature, Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by

man shall his blood be shed. And Cain was so fully convinced, that every

one had a right to destroy such a criminal, that after the murder of his

brother, he cries out, Every one that findeth me, shall slay me; so plain

was it writ in the hearts of all mankind.

        Sect. 12. By the same reason may a man in the state of nature punish

the lesser breaches of that law.  It will perhaps be demanded, with

death? I answer, each transgression may be punished to that degree, and

with so much severity, as will suffice to make it an ill bargain to the

offender, give him cause to repent, and terrify others from doing the

like.  Every offence, that can be committed in the state of nature, may

in the state of nature be also punished equally, and as far forth as it

may, in a commonwealth: for though it would be besides my present

purpose, to enter here into the particulars of the law of nature, or its

measures of punishment; yet, it is certain there is such a law, and that

too, as intelligible and plain to a rational creature, and a studier of

that law, as the positive laws of commonwealths; nay, possibly plainer;

as much as reason is easier to be understood, than the fancies and

intricate contrivances of men, following contrary and hidden interests

put into words; for so truly are a great part of the municipal laws of

countries, which are only so far right, as they are founded on the law of

nature, by which they are to be regulated and interpreted.

        Sect. 13. To this strange doctrine, viz. That in the state of nature

every one has the executive power of the law of nature, I doubt not but

it will be objected, that it is unreasonable for men to be judges in

their own cases, that self-love will make men partial to themselves and

their friends: and on the other side, that ill nature, passion and

revenge will carry them too far in punishing others; and hence nothing

but confusion and disorder will follow, and that therefore God hath

certainly appointed government to restrain the partiality and violence of

men.  I easily grant, that civil government is the proper remedy for the

inconveniencies of the state of nature, which must certainly be great,

where men may be judges in their own case, since it is easy to be

imagined, that he who was so unjust as to do his brother an injury, will

scarce be so just as to condemn himself for it: but I shall desire those

who make this objection, to remember, that absolute monarchs are but men;

and if government is to be the remedy of those evils, which necessarily

follow from men's being judges in their own cases, and the state of

nature is therefore not to how much better it is than the state of

nature, where one man, commanding a multitude, has the liberty to be

judge in his own case, and may do to all his subjects whatever he

pleases, without the least liberty to any one to question or controul

those who execute his pleasure and in whatsoever he cloth, whether led

by reason, mistake or passion, must be submitted to7 much better it is in

the state of nature, wherein men are not bound to submit to the unjust

will of another: and if he that judges, judges amiss in his own, or any

other case, he is answerable for it to the rest of mankind.

        Sect. 14. It is often asked as a mighty objection, where are, or ever

were there any men in such a state of nature? To which it may suffice as

an answer at present, that since all princes and rulers of independent

governments all through the world, are in a state of nature, it is plain

the world never was, nor ever will be, without numbers of men in that

state.  I have named all governors of independent communities, whether

they are, or are not, in league with others: for it is not every compact

that puts an end to the state of nature between men, but only this one of

agreeing together mutually to enter into one community, and make one body

politic; other promises, and compacts, men may make one with another, and

yet still be in the state of nature.  The promises and bargains for

truck, &c. between the two men in the desert island, mentioned by

Garcilasso de la Vega, in his history of Peru; or between a Swiss and an

Indian, in the woods of America, are binding to them, though they are

perfectly in a state of nature, in reference to one another: for truth

and keeping of faith belongs to men, as men, and not as members of

society.

        Sect. 15. To those that say, there were never any men in the state of

nature, I will not only oppose the authority of the judicious Hooker,

Eccl. Pol. lib. i. sect. 10, where he says, The laws which have been

hitherto mentioned, i.e. the laws of nature, do bind men absolutely, even

as they are men, although they have never any settled fellowship, never

any solemn agreement amongst themselves what to do, or not to do: but

forasmuch as we are not by ourselves sufficient to furnish ourselves with

competent store of things, needful for such a life as our nature doth

desire, a life fit for the dignity of man; therefore to supply those

defects and imperfections which are in us, as living single and solely by

ourselves, we are naturally induced to seek communion and fellowship with

others: this was the cause of men's uniting themselves at first in

politic societies.  But I moreover affirm, that all men are naturally in

that state, and remain so, till by their own consents they make

themselves members of some politic society; and I doubt not in the sequel

of this discourse, to make it very clear.

 

 

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C H A P. III.

 

                    Of the State of War.

 

  Sec. 16. THE state of war is a state of enmity and destruction: and

therefore declaring by word or action, not a passionate and hasty, but a

sedate settled design upon another man's life, puts him in a state of war

with him against whom he has declared such an intention, and so has

exposed his life to the other's power to be taken away by him, or any one

that joins with him in his defence, and espouses his quarrel; it being

reasonable and just, I should have a right to destroy that which

threatens me with destruction: for, by the fundamental law of nature, man

being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved,

the safety of the innocent is to be preferred: and one may destroy a man

who makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity to his being, for the

same reason that he may kill a wolf or a lion; because such men are not

under the ties of the commonlaw of reason, have no other rule, but that

of force and violence, and so may be treated as beasts of prey, those

dangerous and noxious creatures, that will be sure to destroy him

whenever he falls into their power.

        Sec. 17. And hence it is, that he who attempts to get another man into

his absolute power, does thereby put himself into a state of war with

him; it being to be understood as a declaration of a design upon his

life: for I have reason to conclude, that he who would get me into his

power without my consent, would use me as he pleased when he had got me

there, and destroy me too when he had a fancy to it; for no body can

desire to have me in his absolute power, unless it be to compel me by

force to that which is against the right of my freedom, i.e. make me a

slave.  To be free from such force is the only security of my

preservation; and reason bids me look on him, as an enemy to my

preservation, who would take away that freedom which is the fence to it;

so that he who makes an attempt to enslave me, thereby puts himself into

a state of war with me.  He that, in

the state of nature, would take away the freedom that belongs to any one

in that state, must necessarily be supposed to have a design to take away

every thing else, that freedom being the foundation of all the rest; as

he that, in the state of society, would take away the freedom belonging

to those of that society or commonwealth, must be supposed to design to

take away from them every thing else, and so be looked on as in a state

of war.

        Sec. 18.  This makes it lawful for a man to kill a thief, who has not

in the least hurt him, nor declared any design upon his life, any farther

than, by the use of force, so to get him in his power, as to take away

his money, or what he pleases, from him; because using force, where he

has no right, to get me into his power, let his pretence be what it will,

I have no reason to suppose, that he, who would take away my liberty,

would not, when he had me in his power, take away every thing else.  And

therefore it is lawful for me to treat him as one who has put himself

into a state of war with me, i.e. kill him if I can; for to that hazard

does he justly expose himself, whoever introduces a state of war, and is

aggressor in it.

        Sec. 19.  And here we have the plain difference between the state of

nature and the state of war, which however some men have confounded, are

as far distant, as a state of peace, good will, mutual assistance and

preservation, and a state of enmity, malice, violence and mutual

destruction, are one from another.  Men living together according to

reason, without a common superior on earth, with authority to judge

between them, is properly the state of nature.  But force, or a declared

design of force, upon the person of another, where there is no common

superior on earth to appeal to for relief, is the state of war: and it is

the want of such an appeal gives a man the right of war even against an

aggressor, tho' he be in society and a fellow subject.  Thus a thief,

whom I cannot harm, but by appeal to the law, for having stolen all that

I am worth, I may kill, when he sets on me to rob me but of my horse or

coat; because the law, which was made for my preservation, where it

cannot interpose to secure my life from present force, which, if lost, is

capable of no reparation, permits me my own defence, and the right of

war, a liberty to kill the aggressor, because the aggressor allows not

time to appeal to our common judge, nor the decision of the law, for

remedy in a case where the mischief may be irreparable.  Want of a common

judge with authority, puts all men in a state of nature: force without

right, upon a man's person, makes a state of war, both where there is,

and is not, a common judge.

        Sec. 20.  But when the actual force is over, the state of war ceases

between those that are in society, and are equally on both sides

subjected to the fair determination of the law; because then there lies

open the remedy of appeal for the past injury, and to prevent future

harm: but where no such appeal is, as in the state of nature, for want of

positive laws, and judges with authority to appeal to, the state of war

once begun, continues, with a right to the innocent party to destroy the

other whenever he can, until the aggressor offers peace, and desires

reconciliation on such terms as may repair any wrongs he has already

done, and secure the innocent for the future; nay, where an appeal to the

law, and constituted judges, lies open, but the remedy is denied by a

manifest perverting of justice, and a barefaced wresting of the laws to

protect or indemnify the violence or injuries of some men, or party of

men, there it is hard to imagine any thing but a state of war: for

wherever violence is used, and injury done, though by hands appointed to

administer justice, it is still violence and injury, however coloured

with the name, pretences, or forms of law, the end whereof being to

protect and redress the innocent, by an unbiassed application of it, to

all who are under it; wherever that is not bona fide done, war is made

upon the sufferers, who having no appeal on earth to right them, they are

left to the only remedy in such cases, an appeal to heaven.

        Sec. 21.  To avoid this state of war (wherein there is no appeal but

to heaven, and wherein every the least difference is apt to end, where

there is no authority to decide between the contenders) is one great

reason of men's putting themselves into society, and quitting the state

of nature: for where there is an authority, a power on earth, from which

relief can be had by appeal, there the continuance of the state of war is

excluded, and the controversy is decided by that power.  Had there been

any such court, any superior jurisdiction on earth, to determine the

right between Jephtha and the Ammonites, they had never come to a state

of war: but we see he was forced to appeal to heaven.  The Lord the Judge

(says he) be judge this day between the children of Israel and the

children of Ammon, Judg.  xi.  27.  and then prosecuting, and relying on

his appeal, he leads out his army to battle: and therefore in such

controversies, where the question is put, who shall be judge? It cannot

be meant, who shall decide the controversy; every one knows what Jephtha

here tells us, that the Lord the Judge shall judge.  Where there is no

judge on earth, the appeal lies to God in heaven.  That question then

cannot mean, who shall judge, whether another hath put himself in a state

of war with me, and whether I may, as Jephtha did, appeal to heaven in

it? of that I myself can only be judge in my own conscience, as I will

answer it, at the great day, to the supreme judge of all men.

 

 

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CHAP. IV.

 

                            Of SLAVERY.

 

 

        Sec. 22.  THE natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior

power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of

man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule.  The liberty of

man, in society, is to be under no other legislative power, but that

established, by consent, in the commonwealth; nor under the dominion of

any will, or restraint of any law, but what that legislative shall enact,

according to the trust put in it.  Freedom then is not what Sir Robert

Filmer tells us, Observations, A. 55. a liberty for every one to do what

he lists, to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws: but

freedom of men under government is, to have a standing rule to live by,

common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power

erected in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, where the

rule prescribes not; and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain,

unknown, arbitrary will of another man: as freedom of nature is, to be

under no other restraint but the law of nature.

        Sec. 23.  This freedom from absolute, arbitrary power, is so necessary

to, and closely joined with a man's preservation, that he cannot part

with it, but by what forfeits his preservation and life together: for a

man, not having the power of his own life, cannot, by compact, or his own

consent, enslave himself to any one, nor put himself under the absolute,

arbitrary power of another, to take away his life, when he pleases.  No

body can give more power than he has himself; and he that cannot take

away his own life, cannot give another power over it.  Indeed, having by

his fault forfeited his own life, by some act that deserves death; he, to

whom he has forfeited it, may (when he has him in his power) delay to

take it, and make use of him to his own service, and he does him no

injury by it: for, whenever he finds the hardship of his slavery outweigh

the value of his life, it is in his power, by resisting the will of his

master, to draw on himself the death he desires.

        Sec. 24.  This is the perfect condition of slavery, which is nothing

else, but the state of war continued, between a lawful conqueror and a

captive: for, if once compact enter between them, and make an agreement

for a limited power on the one side, and obedience on the other, the

state of war and slavery ceases, as long as the compact endures: for, as

has been said, no man can, by agreement, pass over to another that which

he hath not in himself, a power over his own life. I confess, we find

among the Jews, as well as other nations, that men did sell themselves;

but, it is plain, this was only to drudgery, not to slavery: for, it is

evident, the person sold was not under an absolute, arbitrary, despotical

power: for the master could not have power to kill him, at any time,

whom, at a certain time, he was obliged to let go free out of his

service; and the master of such a servant was so far from having an

arbitrary power over his life, that he could not, at pleasure, so much as

maim him, but the loss of an eye, or tooth, set him free, Exod. xxi.

 

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CHAP.  V.

 

                        Of PROPERTY.

 

        Sec. 25.  Whether we consider natural reason, which tells us, that

men, being once born, have a right to their preservation, and

consequently to meat and drink, and such other things as nature affords

for their subsistence: or revelation, which gives us an account of those

grants God made of the world to Adam, and to Noah, and his sons, it is

very clear, that God, as king David says, Psal. cxv.  16.  has given the

earth to the children of men; given it to mankind in common.  But this

being supposed, it seems to some a very great difficulty, how any one

should ever come to have a property in any thing: I will not content

myself to answer, that if it be difficult to make out property, upon a

supposition that God gave the world to Adam, and his posterity in common,

it is impossible that any man, but one universal monarch, should have any

property upon a supposition, that God gave the world to Adam, and his

heirs in succession, exclusive of all the rest of his posterity.  But I

shall endeavour to shew, how men might come to have a property in several

parts of that which God gave to mankind in common, and that without any

express compact of all the commoners.

        Sec. 26.  God, who hath given the world to men in common, hath also

given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life, and

convenience.  The earth, and all that is therein, is given to men for the

support and comfort of their being.  And tho' all the fruits it naturally

produces, and beasts it feeds, belong to mankind in common, as they are

produced by the spontaneous hand of nature; and no body has originally a

private dominion, exclusive of the rest of mankind, in any of them, as

they are thus in their natural state: yet being given for the use of men,

there must of necessity be a means to appropriate them some way or other,

before they can be of any use, or at all beneficial to any particular

man.  The fruit, or venison, which nourishes the wild Indian, who knows

no enclosure, and is still a tenant in common, must be his, and so his,

i.e. a part of him, that another can no longer have any right to it,

before it can do him any good for the support of his life.

        Sec. 27.  Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to

all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this no body has

any right to but himself.  The labour of his body, and the work of his

hands, we may say, are properly his.  Whatsoever then he removes out of

the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his

labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby

makes it his property.  It being by him removed from the common state

nature hath placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it,

that excludes the common right of other men: for this labour being the

unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right

to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as

good, left in common for others.

        Sec. 28.  He that is nourished by the acorns he picked up under an

oak, or the apples he gathered from the trees in the wood, has certainly

appropriated them to himself.  No body can deny but the nourishment is

his.  I ask then, when did they begin to be his? when he digested? or

when he eat? or when he boiled? or when he brought them home? or when he

picked them up? and it is plain, if the first gathering made them not

his, nothing else could.  That labour put a distinction between them and

common: that added something to them more than nature, the common mother

of all, had done; and so they became his private right.  And will any one

say, he had no right to those acorns or apples, he thus appropriated,

because he had not the consent of all mankind to make them his? Was it a

robbery thus to assume to himself what belonged to all in common? If such

a consent as that was necessary, man had starved, notwithstanding the

plenty God had given him.  We see in commons, which remain so by compact,

that it is the taking any part of what is common, and removing it out of

the state nature leaves it in, which begins the property; without which

the common is of no use.  And the taking of this or that part, does not

depend on the express consent of all the commoners.  Thus the grass my

horse has bit; the turfs my servant has cut; and the ore I have digged in

any place, where I have a right to them in common with others, become my

property, without the assignation or consent of any body.  The labour

that was mine, removing them out of that common state they were in, hath

fixed my property in them.

        Sec. 29.  By making an explicit consent of every commoner, necessary

to any one's appropriating to himself any part of what is given in

common, children or servants could not cut the meat, which their father

or master had provided for them in common, without assigning to every one

his peculiar part.  Though the water running in the fountain be every

one's, yet who can doubt, but that in the pitcher is his only who drew it

out? His labour hath taken it out of the hands of nature, where it was

common, and belonged equally to all her children, and hath thereby

appropriated it to himself.

        Sec. 30.  Thus this law of reason makes the deer that Indian's who

hath killed it; it is allowed to be his goods, who hath bestowed his

labour upon it, though before it was the common right of every one.  And

amongst those who are counted the civilized part of mankind, who have

made and multiplied positive laws to determine property, this original

law of nature, for the beginning of property, in what was before common,

still takes place; and by virtue thereof, what fish any one catches in

the ocean, that great and still remaining common of mankind; or what

ambergrise any one takes up here, is by the labour that removes it out of

that common state nature left it in, made his property, who takes that

pains about it.  And even amongst us, the hare that any one is hunting,

is thought his who pursues her during the chase: for being a beast that

is still looked upon as common, and no man's private possession; whoever

has employed so much labour about any of that kind, as to find and pursue

her, has thereby removed her from the state of nature, wherein she was

common, and hath begun a property.

        Sec. 31.  It will perhaps be objected to this, that if gathering the

acorns, or other fruits of the earth, &c. makes a right to them, then any

one may ingross as much as he will.  To which I answer, Not so.  The same

law of nature, that does by this means give us property, does also bound

that property too.  God has given us all things richly, 1 Tim.  vi.  12.

is the voice of reason confirmed by inspiration.  But how far has he

given it us? To enjoy.  As much as any one can make use of to any

advantage of life before it spoils, so much he may by his Tabour fix a

property in: whatever is beyond this, is more than his share, and belongs

to others.  Nothing was made by God for man to spoil or destroy.  And

thus, considering the plenty of natural provisions there was a long time

in the world, and the few spenders; and to how small a part of that

provision the industry of one man could extend itself, and ingross it to

the prejudice of others; especially keeping within the bounds, set by

reason, of what might serve for his use; there could be then little room

for quarrels or contentions about property so established.

        Sec. 32.  But the chief matter of property being now not the fruits of

the earth, and the beasts that subsist on it, but the earth itself; as

that which takes in and carries with it all the rest; I think it is

plain, that property in that too is acquired as the former.  As much land

as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of,

so much is his property.  He by his labour does, as it were, inclose it

from the common.  Nor will it invalidate his right, to say every body

else has an equal title to it; and therefore he cannot appropriate, he

cannot inclose, without the consent of all his fellow-commoners, all

mankind.  God, when he gave the world in common to all mankind, commanded

man also to labour, and the penury of his condition required it of him.

God and his reason commanded him to subdue the earth, i.e. improve it for

the benefit of life, and therein lay out something upon it that was his

own, his labour.  He that in obedience to this command of God, subdued,

tilled and sowed any part of it, thereby annexed to it something that was

his property, which another had no title to, nor could without injury

take from him.

        Sec. 33.  Nor was this appropriation of any parcel of land, by

improving it, any prejudice to any other man, since there was still

enough, and as good left; and more than the yet unprovided could use.  So

that, in effect, there was never the less left for others because of his

enclosure for himself: for he that leaves as much as another can make use

of, does as good as take nothing at all.  No body could think himself

injured by the drinking of another man, though he took a good draught,

who had a whole river of the same water left him to quench his thirst:

and the case of land and water, where there is enough of both, is

perfectly the same.

        Sec. 34.  God gave the world to men in common; but since he gave it

them for their benefit, and the greatest conveniencies of life they were

capable to draw from it, it cannot be supposed he meant it should always

remain common and uncultivated.  He gave it to the use of the industrious

and rational, (and labour was to be his title to it;) not to the fancy or

covetousness of the quarrelsome and contentious.  He that had as good

left for his improvement, as was already taken up, needed not complain,

ought not to meddle with what was already improved by another's labour:

if he did, it is plain he desired the benefit of another's pains, which

he had no right to, and not the ground which God had given him in common

with others to labour on, and whereof there was as good left, as that

already possessed, and more than he knew what to do with, or his industry

could reach to.

        Sec. 35.  It is true, in land that is common in England, or any other

country, where there is plenty of people under government, who have money

and commerce, no one can inclose or appropriate any part, without the

consent of all his fellow-commoners; because this is left common by

compact, i.e. by the law of the land, which is not to be violated.  And

though it be common, in respect of some men, it is not so to all mankind;

but is the joint property of this country, or this parish.  Besides, the

remainder, after such enclosure, would not be as good to the rest of the

commoners, as the whole was when they could all make use of the whole;

whereas in the beginning and first peopling of the great common of the

world, it was quite otherwise.  The law man was under, was rather for

appropriating.  God commanded, and his wants forced him to labour.  That

was his property which could not be taken from him where-ever he had

fixed it.  And hence subduing or cultivating the earth, and having

dominion, we see are joined together.  The one gave title to the other.

So that God, by commanding to subdue, gave authority so far to

appropriate: and the condition of human life, which requires labour and

materials to work on, necessarily introduces private possessions.

        Sec. 36.  The measure of property nature has well set by the extent of

men's labour and the conveniencies of life: no man's labour could subdue,

or appropriate all; nor could his enjoyment consume more than a small

part; so that it was impossible for any man, this way, to intrench upon

the right of another, or acquire to himself a property, to the prejudice

of his neighbour, who would still have room for as good, and as large a

possession (after the other had taken out his) as before it was

appropriated.  This measure did confine every man's possession to a very

moderate proportion, and such as he might appropriate to himself, without

injury to any body, in the first ages of the world, when men were more in

danger to be lost, by wandering from their company, in the then vast

wilderness of the earth, than to be straitened for want of room to plant

in.  And the same measure may be allowed still without prejudice to any

body, as full as the world seems: for supposing a man, or family, in the

state they were at first peopling of the world by the children of Adam,

or Noah; let him plant in some inland, vacant places of America, we shall

find that the possessions he could make himself, upon the measures we

have given, would not be very large, nor, even to this day, prejudice the

rest of mankind, or give them reason to complain, or think themselves

injured by this man's incroachment, though the race of men have now

spread themselves to all the corners of the world, and do infinitely

exceed the small number was at the beginning.  Nay, the extent of ground

is of so little value, without labour, that I have heard it affirmed,

that in Spain itself a man may be permitted to plough, sow and reap,

without being disturbed, upon land he has no other title to, but only his

making use of it.  But, on the contrary, the inhabitants think themselves

beholden to him, who, by his industry on neglected, and consequently

waste land, has increased the stock of corn, which they wanted.  But be

this as it will, which I lay no stress on; this I dare boldly affirm,

that the same rule of propriety, (viz.) that every man should have as

much as he could make use of, would hold still in the world, without

straitening any body; since there is land enough in the world to suffice

double the inhabitants, had not the invention of money, and the tacit

agreement of men to put a value on it, introduced (by consent) larger

possessions, and a right to them; which, how it has done, I shall by and

by shew more at large.

        Sec. 37.  This is certain, that in the beginning, before the desire of

having more than man needed had altered the intrinsic value of things,

which depends only on their usefulness to the life of man; or had agreed,

that a little piece of yellow metal, which would keep without wasting or

decay, should be worth a great piece of flesh, or a whole heap of corn;

though men had a right to appropriate, by their labour, each one of

himself, as much of the things of nature, as he could use: yet this could

not be much, nor to the prejudice of others, where the same plenty was

still left to those who would use the same industry.  To which let me

add, that he who appropriates land to himself by his labour, does not

lessen, but increase the common stock of mankind: for the provisions

serving to the support of human life, produced by one acre of inclosed

and cultivated land, are (to speak much within compass) ten times more

than those which are yielded by an acre of land of an equal richness

lying waste in common.  And therefore he that incloses land, and has a

greater plenty of the conveniencies of life from ten acres, than he could

have from an hundred left to nature, may truly be said to give ninety

acres to mankind: for his labour now supplies him with provisions out of

ten acres, which were but the product of an hundred lying in common.  I

have here rated the improved land very low, in making its product but as

ten to one, when it is much nearer an hundred to one: for I ask, whether

in the wild woods and uncultivated waste of America, left to nature,

without any improvement, tillage or husbandry, a thousand acres yield the

needy and wretched inhabitants as many conveniencies of life, as ten

acres of equally fertile land do in Devonshire, where they are well

cultivated?        Before the appropriation of land, he who gathered as much

of the wild fruit, killed, caught, or tamed, as many of the beasts, as he

could; he that so imployed his pains about any of the spontaneous

products of nature, as any way to alter them from the state which nature

put them in, by placing any of his labour on them, did thereby acquire a

propriety in them: but if they perished, in his possession, without their

due use; if the fruits rotted, or the venison putrified, before he could

spend it, he offended against the common law of nature, and was liable to

be punished; he invaded his neighbour's share, for he had no right,

farther than his use called for any of them, and they might serve to

afford him conveniencies of life.

        Sec. 38.  The same measures governed the possession of land too:

whatsoever he tilled and reaped, laid up and made use of, before it

spoiled, that was his peculiar right; whatsoever he enclosed, and could

feed, and make use of, the cattle and product was also his.  But if

either the grass of his enclosure rotted on the ground, or the fruit of

his planting perished without gathering, and laying up, this part of the

earth, notwithstanding his enclosure, was still to be looked on as waste,

and might be the possession of any other.  Thus, at the beginning, Cain

might take as much ground as he could till, and make it his own land, and

yet leave enough to Abel's sheep to feed on; a few acres would serve for

both their possessions.  But as families increased, and industry inlarged

their stocks, their possessions inlarged with the need of them; but yet

it was commonly without any fixed property in the ground they made use

of, till they incorporated, settled themselves together, and built

cities; and then, by consent, they came in time, to set out the bounds of

their distinct territories, and agree on limits between them and their

neighbours; and by laws within themselves, settled the properties of

those of the same society: for we see, that in that part of the world

which was first inhabited, and therefore like to be best peopled, even as

low down as Abraham's time, they wandered with their flocks, and their

herds, which was their substance, freely up and down; and this Abraham

did, in a country where he was a stranger.  Whence it is plain, that at

least a great part of the land lay in common; that the inhabitants valued

it not, nor claimed property in any more than they made use of.  But when

there was not room enough in the same place, for their herds to feed

together, they by consent, as Abraham and Lot did, Gen. xiii.  5.

separated and inlarged their pasture, where it best liked them.  And for

the same reason Esau went from his father, and his brother, and planted

in mount Seir, Gen. xxxvi. 6.

        Sec. 39.  And thus, without supposing any private dominion, and

property in Adam, over all the world, exclusive of all other men, which

can no way be proved, nor any one's property be made out from it; but

supposing the world given, as it was, to the children of men in common,

we see how labour could make men distinct titles to several parcels of

it, for their private uses; wherein there could be no doubt of right, no

room for quarrel.

        Sec. 40.  Nor is it so strange, as perhaps before consideration it may

appear, that the property of labour should be able to over-balance the

community of land: for it is labour indeed that puts the difference of

value on every thing; and let any one consider what the difference is

between an acre of land planted with tobacco or sugar, sown with wheat or

barley, and an acre of the same land lying in common, without any

husbandry upon it, and he will find, that the improvement of labour makes

the far greater part of the value.  I think it will be but a very modest

computation to say, that of the products of the earth useful to the life

of man nine tenths are the effects of labour: nay, if we will rightly

estimate things as they come to our use, and cast up the several expences

about them, what in them is purely owing to nature, and what to labour,

we shall find, that in most of them ninety-nine hundredths are wholly to

be put on the account of labour.

        Sec. 41.  There cannot be a clearer demonstration of any thing, than

several nations of the Americans are of this, who are rich in land, and

poor in all the comforts of life; whom nature having furnished as

liberally as any other people, with the materials of plenty, i.e. a

fruitful soil, apt to produce in abundance, what might serve for food,

raiment, and delight; yet for want of improving it by labour, have not

one hundredth part of the conveniencies we enjoy: and a king of a large

and fruitful territory there, feeds, lodges, and is clad worse than a

day-labourer in England.

        Sec. 42.  To make this a little clearer, let us but trace some of the

ordinary provisions of life, through their several progresses, before

they come to our use, and see how much they receive of their value from

human industry.  Bread, wine and cloth, are things of daily use, and

great plenty; yet notwithstanding, acorns, water and leaves, or skins,

must be our bread, drink and cloathing, did not labour furnish us with

these more useful commodities: for whatever bread is more worth than

acorns, wine than water, and cloth or silk, than leaves, skins or moss,

that is wholly owing to labour and industry; the one of these being the

food and raiment which unassisted nature furnishes us with; the other,

provisions which our industry and pains prepare for us, which how much

they exceed the other in value, when any one hath computed, he will then

see how much labour makes the far greatest part of the value of things we

enjoy in this world: and the ground which produces the materials, is

scarce to be reckoned in, as any, or at most, but a very small part of

it; so little, that even amongst us, land that is left wholly to nature,

that hath no improvement of pasturage, tillage, or planting, is called,

as indeed it is, waste; and we shall find the benefit of it amount to

little more than nothing. This shews how much numbers of men are to be

preferred to largeness of dominions; and that the increase of lands, and

the right employing of them, is the great art of government: and that

prince, who shall be so wise and godlike, as by established laws of

liberty to secure protection and encouragement to the honest industry of

mankind, against the oppression of power and narrowness of party, will

quickly be too hard for his neighbours: but this by the by.  To return to

the argument in hand,

        Sec. 43.  An acre of land, that bears here twenty bushels of wheat,

and another in America, which, with the same husbandry, would do the

like, are, without doubt, of the same natural intrinsic value: but yet

the benefit mankind receives from the one in a year, is worth 5l.  and

from the other possibly not worth a penny, if all the profit an Indian

received from it were to be valued, and sold here; at least, I may truly

say, not one thousandth.  It is labour then which puts the greatest part

of value upon land, without which it would scarcely be worth any thing:

it is to that we owe the greatest part of all its useful products; for

all that the straw, bran, bread, of that acre of wheat, is more worth

than the product of an acre of as good land, which lies waste, is all the

effect of labour: for it is not barely the plough-man's pains, the

reaper's and thresher's toil, and the baker's sweat, is to be counted

into the bread we eat; the labour of those who broke the oxen, who digged

and wrought the iron and stones, who felled and framed the timber

employed about the plough, mill, oven, or any other utensils, which are a

vast number, requisite to this corn, from its being feed to be sown to

its being made bread, must all be charged on the account of labour, and

received as an effect of that: nature and the earth furnished only the

almost worthless materials, as in themselves.  It would be a strange

catalogue of things, that industry provided and made use of, about every

loaf of bread, before it came to our use, if we could trace them; iron,

wood, leather, bark, timber, stone, bricks, coals, lime, cloth, dying

drugs, pitch, tar, masts, ropes, and all the materials made use of in the

ship, that brought any of the commodities made use of by any of the

workmen, to any part of the work; all which it would be almost

impossible, at least too long, to reckon up.

        Sec. 44.  From all which it is evident, that though the things of

nature are given in common, yet man, by being master of himself, and

proprietor of his own person, and the actions or labour of it, had still

in himself the great foundation of property; and that, which made up the

great part of what he applied to the support or comfort of his being,

when invention and arts had improved the conveniencies of life, was

perfectly his own, and did not belong in common to others.

        Sec. 45.  Thus labour, in the beginning, gave a right of property,

wherever any one was pleased to employ it upon what was common, which

remained a long while the far greater part, and is yet more than mankind

makes use of.  Men, at first, for the most part, contented themselves

with what unassisted nature offered to their necessities: and though

afterwards, in some parts of the world, (where the increase of people and

stock, with the use of money, had made land scarce, and so of some value)

the several communities settled the bounds of their distinct territories,

and by laws within themselves regulated the properties of the private men

of their society, and so, by compact and agreement, settled the property

which labour and industry began; and the leagues that have been made

between several states and kingdoms, either expresly or tacitly disowning

all claim and right to the land in the others possession, have, by common

consent, given up their pretences to their natural common right, which

originally they had to those countries, and so have, by positive

agreement, settled a property amongst themselves, in distinct parts and

parcels of the earth; yet there are still great tracts of ground to be

found, which (the inhabitants thereof not having joined with the rest of

mankind, in the consent of the use of their common money) lie waste, and

are more than the people who dwell on it do, or can make use of, and so

still lie in common; tho' this can scarce happen amongst that part of

mankind that have consented to the use of money.

        Sec. 46.  The greatest part of things really useful to the life of

man, and such as the necessity of subsisting made the first commoners of

the world look after, as it cloth the Americans now, are generally things

of short duration; such as, if they are not consumed by use, will decay

and perish of themselves: gold, silver and diamonds, are things that

fancy or agreement hath put the value on, more than real use, and the

necessary support of life.  Now of those good things which nature hath

provided in common, every one had a right (as hath been said) to as much

as he could use, and property in all that he could effect with his

labour; all that his industry could extend to, to alter from the state

nature had put it in, was his.  He that gathered a hundred bushels of

acorns or apples, had thereby a property in them, they were his goods as

soon as gathered.  He was only to look, that he used them before they

spoiled, else he took more than his share, and robbed others.  And indeed

it was a foolish thing, as well as dishonest, to hoard up more than he

could make use of.  If he gave away a part to any body else, so that it

perished not uselesly in his possession, these he also made use of.  And

if he also bartered away plums, that would have rotted in a week, for

nuts that would last good for his eating a whole year, he did no injury;

he wasted not the common stock; destroyed no part of the portion of goods

that belonged to others, so long as nothing perished uselesly in his

hands.  Again, if he would give his nuts for a piece of metal, pleased

with its colour; or exchange his sheep for shells, or wool for a

sparkling pebble or a diamond, and keep those by him all his life he

invaded not the right of others, he might heap up as much of these

durable things as he pleased; the exceeding of the bounds of his just

property not lying in the largeness of his possession, but the perishing

of any thing uselesly in it.

        Sec. 47.  And thus came in the use of money, some lasting thing that

men might keep without spoiling, and that by mutual consent men would

take in exchange for the truly useful, but perishable supports of life.

        Sec. 48.  And as different degrees of industry were apt to give men

possessions in different proportions, so this invention of money gave

them the opportunity to continue and enlarge them: for supposing an

island, separate from all possible commerce with the rest of the world,

wherein there were but an hundred families, but there were sheep, horses

and cows, with other useful animals, wholsome fruits, and land enough for

corn for a hundred thousand times as many, but nothing in the island,

either because of its commonness, or perishableness, fit to supply the

place of money; what reason could any one have there to enlarge his

possessions beyond the use of his family, and a plentiful supply to its

consumption, either in what their own industry produced, or they could

barter for like perishable, useful commodities, with others? Where there

is not some thing, both lasting and scarce, and so valuable to be hoarded

up, there men will not be apt to enlarge their possessions of land, were

it never so rich, never so free for them to take: for I ask, what would a

man value ten thousand, or an hundred thousand acres of excellent land,

ready cultivated, and well stocked too with cattle, in the middle of the

inland parts of America, where he had no hopes of commerce with other

parts of the world, to draw money to him by the sale of the product? It

would not be worth the enclosing, and we should see him give up again to

the wild common of nature, whatever was more than would supply the

conveniencies of life to be had there for him and his family.

        Sec. 49.  Thus in the beginning all the world was America, and more so

than that is now; for no such thing as money was any where known.  Find

out something that hath the use and value of money amongst his

neighbours, you shall see the same man will begin presently to enlarge

his possessions.

        Sec. 50.  But since gold and silver, being little useful to the life

of man in proportion to food, raiment, and carriage, has its value only

from the consent of men, whereof labour yet makes, in great part, the

measure, it is plain, that men have agreed to a disproportionate and

unequal possession of the earth, they having, by a tacit and voluntary

consent, found out, a way how a man may fairly possess more land than he

himself can use the product of, by receiving in exchange for the overplus

gold and silver, which may be hoarded up without injury to any one; these

metals not spoiling or decaying in the hands of the possessor.  This

partage of things in an inequality of private possessions, men have made

practicable out of the bounds of society, and without compact, only by

putting a value on gold and silver, and tacitly agreeing in the use of

money: for in governments, the laws regulate the right of property, and

the possession of land is determined by positive constitutions.

        Sec. 51.  And thus, I think, it is very easy to conceive, without any

difficulty, how labour could at first begin a title of property in the

common things of nature, and how the spending it upon our uses bounded

it.  So that there could then be no reason of quarrelling about title,

nor any doubt about the largeness of possession it gave.  Right and

conveniency went together; for as a man had a right to all he could

employ his labour upon, so he had no temptation to labour for more than

he could make use of.  This left no room for controversy about the title,

nor for encroachment on the right of others; what portion a man carved to

himself, was easily seen; and it was useless, as well as dishonest, to

carve himself too much, or take more than he needed.

 

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CHAP.  VI.

 

                      Of Paternal Power.

 

        Sec. 52.  IT may perhaps be censured as an impertinent criticism, in a

discourse of this nature, to find fault with words and names, that have

obtained in the world: and yet possibly it may not be amiss to offer new

ones, when the old are apt to lead men into mistakes, as this of paternal

power probably has done, which seems so to place the power of parents

over their children wholly in the father, as if the mother had no share

in it; whereas, if we consult reason or revelation, we shall find, she

hath an equal title.  This may give one reason to ask, whether this might

not be more properly called parental power? for whatever obligation

nature and the right of generation lays on children, it must certainly

bind them equal to both the concurrent causes of it.  And accordingly we

see the positive law of God every where joins them together, without

distinction, when it commands the obedience of children, Honour thy

father and thy mother, Exod. xx. 12.  Whosoever curseth his father or his

mother, Lev. xx. 9.  Ye shall fear every man his mother and his father,

Lev. xix. 3.  Children, obey your parents, &c. Eph. vi. 1.  is the stile

of the Old and New Testament.

        Sec. 53.  Had but this one thing been well considered, without looking

any deeper into the matter, it might perhaps have kept men from running

into those gross mistakes, they have made, about this power of parents;

which, however it might, without any great harshness, bear the name of

absolute dominion, and regal authority, when under the title of paternal

power it seemed appropriated to the father, would yet have founded but

oddly, and in the very name shewn the absurdity, if this supposed

absolute power over children had been called parental; and thereby have

discovered, that it belonged to the mother too: for it will but very ill

serve the turn of those men, who contend so much for the absolute power

and authority of the fatherhood, as they call it, that the mother should

have any share in it; and it would have but ill supported the monarchy

they contend for, when by the very name it appeared, that that

fundamental authority, from whence they would derive their government of

a single person only, was not placed in one, but two persons jointly.

But to let this of names pass.

        Sec. 54.  Though I have said above, Chap.  II. That all men by nature

are equal, I cannot be supposed to understand all sorts of equality: age

or virtue may give men a just precedency: excellency of parts and merit

may place others above the common level: birth may subject some, and

alliance or benefits others, to pay an observance to those to whom

nature, gratitude, or other respects, may have made it due: and yet all

this consists with the equality, which all men are in, in respect of

jurisdiction or dominion one over another; which was the equality I there

spoke of, as proper to the business in hand, being that equal right, that

every man hath, to his natural freedom, without being subjected to the

will or authority of any other man.

        Sec. 55.  Children, I confess, are not born in this full state of

equality, though they are born to it.  Their parents have a sort of rule

and jurisdiction over them, when they come into the world, and for some

time after; but it is but a temporary one.  The bonds of this subjection

are like the swaddling clothes they art wrapt up in, and supported by, in

the weakness of their infancy: age and reason as they grow up, loosen

them, till at length they drop quite off, and leave a man at his own free

disposal.

        Sec. 56.  Adam was created a perfect man, his body and mind in full

possession of their strength and reason, and so was capable, from the

first instant of his being to provide for his own support and

preservation, and govern his actions according to the dictates of the law

of reason which God had implanted in him.  From him the world is peopled

with his descendants, who are all born infants, weak and helpless,

without knowledge or understanding: but to supply the defects of this

imperfect state, till the improvement of growth and age hath removed

them, Adam and Eve, and after them all parents were, by the law of

nature, under an obligation to preserve, nourish, and educate the

children they had begotten; not as their own workmanship, but the

workmanship of their own maker, the Almighty, to whom they were to be

accountable for them.

        Sec. 57.  The law, that was to govern Adam, was the same that was to

govern all his posterity, the law of reason.  But his offspring having

another way of entrance into the world, different from him, by a natural

birth, that produced them ignorant and without the use of reason, they

were not presently under that law; for no body can be under a law, which

is not promulgated to him; and this law being promulgated or made known

by reason only, he that is not come to the use of his reason, cannot be

said to be under this law; and Adam's children, being not presently as

soon as born under this law of reason, were not presently free: for law,

in its true notion, is not so much the limitation as the direction of a

free and intelligent agent to his proper interest, and prescribes no

farther than is for the general good of those under that law: could they

be happier without it, the law, as an useless thing, would of itself

vanish; and that ill deserves the name of confinement which hedges us in

only from bogs and precipices.  So that, however it may be mistaken, the

end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge

freedom: for in all the states of created beings capable of laws, where

there is no law, there is no freedom: for liberty is, to be free from

restraint and violence from others; which cannot be, where there is no

law: but freedom is not, as we are told, a liberty for every man to do

what he lists: (for who could be free, when every other man's humour

might domineer over him?) but a liberty to dispose, and order as he

lists, his person, actions, possessions, and his whole property, within

the allowance of those laws under which he is, and therein not to be

subject to the arbitrary will of another, but freely follow his own.

        Sec. 58.  The power, then, that parents have over their children,

arises from that duty which is incumbent on them, to take care of their

off-spring, during the imperfect state of childhood.  To inform the mind,

and govern the actions of their yet ignorant nonage, till reason shall

take its place, and ease them of that trouble, is what the children want,

and the parents are bound to: for God having given man an understanding

to direct his actions, has allowed him a freedom of will, and liberty of

acting, as properly belonging thereunto, within the bounds of that law he

is under.  But whilst he is in an estate, wherein he has not

understanding of his own to direct his will, he is not to have any will

of his own to follow: he that understands for him, must will for him too;

he must prescribe to his will, and regulate his actions; but when he

comes to the estate that made his father a freeman, the son is a freeman

too.

        Sec. 59.  This holds in all the laws a man is under, whether natural

or civil.  Is a man under the law of nature? What made him free of that

law? what gave him a free disposing of his property, according to his own

will, within the compass of that law? I answer, a state of maturity

wherein he might be supposed capable to know that law, that so he might

keep his actions within the bounds of it.  When he has acquired that

state, he is presumed to know how far that law is to be his guide, and

how far he may make use of his freedom, and so comes to have it; till

then, some body else must guide him, who is presumed to know how far the

law allows a liberty.  If such a state of reason, such an age of

discretion made him free, the same shall make his son free too.  Is a man

under the law of England? What made him free of that law? that is, to

have the liberty to dispose of his actions and possessions according to

his own will, within the permission of that law? A capacity of knowing

that law; which is supposed by that law, at the age of one and twenty

years, and in some cases sooner.  If this made the father free, it shall

make the son free too.  Till then we see the law allows the son to have

no will, but he is to be guided by the will of his father or guardian,

who is to understand for him.  And if the father die, and fail to

substitute a deputy in his trust; if he hath not provided a tutor, to

govern his son, during his minority, during his want of understanding,

the law takes care to do it; some other must govern him, and be a will to

him, till he hath attained to a state of freedom, and his understanding

be fit to take the government of his will.  But after that, the father

and son are equally free as much as tutor and pupil after nonage; equally

subjects of the same law together, without any dominion left in the

father over the life, liberty, or estate of his son, whether they be only

in the state and under the law of nature, or under the positive laws of

an established government.

        Sec. 60.  But if, through defects that may happen out of the ordinary

course of nature, any one comes not to such a degree of reason, wherein

he might be supposed capable of knowing the law, and so living within the

rules of it, he is never capable of being a free man, he is never let

loose to the disposure of his own will (because he knows no bounds to it,

has not understanding, its proper guide) but is continued under the

tuition and government of others, all the time his own understanding is

uncapable of that charge.  And so lunatics and ideots are never set free

from the government of their parents; children, who are not as yet come

unto those years whereat they may have; and innocents which are excluded

by a natural defect from ever having; thirdly, madmen, which for the

present cannot possibly have the use of right reason to guide themselves,

have for their guide, the reason that guideth other men which are tutors

over them, to seek and procure their good for them, says Hooker, Eccl.

Pol. lib. i. sec. 7.  All which seems no more than that duty, which God

and nature has laid on man, as well as other creatures, to preserve their

offspring, till they can be able to shift for themselves, and will scarce

amount to an instance or proof of parents regal authority.

        Sec. 61.  Thus we are born free, as we are born rational; not that we

have actually the exercise of either: age, that brings one, brings with

it the other too.  And thus we see how natural freedom and subjection to

parents may consist together, and are both founded on the same

principle.  A child is free by his father's title, by his father's

understanding, which is to govern him till he hath it of his own.  The

freedom of a man at years of discretion, and the subjection of a child to

his parents, whilst yet short of that age, are so consistent, and so

distinguishable, that the most blinded contenders for monarchy, by right

of fatherhood, cannot miss this difference; the most obstinate cannot but

allow their consistency: for were their doctrine all true, were the right

heir of Adam now known, and by that title settled a monarch in his

throne, invested with all the absolute unlimited power Sir Robert Filmer

talks of; if he should die as soon as his heir were born, must not the

child, notwithstanding he were never so free, never so much sovereign, be

in subjection to his mother and nurse, to tutors and governors, till age

and education brought him reason and ability to govern himself and

others? The necessities of his life, the health of his body, and the

information of his mind, would require him to be directed by the will of

others, and not his own; and yet will any one think, that this restraint

and subjection were inconsistent with, or spoiled him of that liberty or

sovereignty he had a right to, or gave away his empire to those who had

the government of his nonage? This government over him only prepared him

the better and sooner for it.  If any body should ask me, when my son is

of age to be free? I shall answer, just when his monarch is of age to

govern.  But at what time, says the judicious Hooker, Eccl. Pol. l. i.

sect. 6. a man may be said to have attained so far forth the use of

reason, as sufficeth to make him capable of those laws whereby he is then

bound to guide his actions: this is a great deal more easy for sense to

discern, than for any one by skill and learning to determine.

        Sec. 62.  Common-wealths themselves take notice of, and allow, that

there is a time when men are to begin to act like free men, and therefore

till that time require not oaths of fealty, or allegiance, or other

public owning of, or submission to the government of their countries.

        Sec. 63.  The freedom then of man, and liberty of acting according to

his own will, is grounded on his having reason, which is able to instruct

him in that law he is to govern himself by, and make him know how far he

is left to the freedom of his own will.  To turn him loose to an

unrestrained liberty, before he has reason to guide him, is not the

allowing him the privilege of his nature to be free; but to thrust him

out amongst brutes, and abandon him to a state as wretched, and as much

beneath that of a man, as their's.  This is that which puts the authority

into the parents hands to govern the minority of their children.  God

hath made it their business to employ this care on their offspring, and

hath placed in them suitable inclinations of tenderness and concern to

temper this power, to apply it, as his wisdom designed it, to the

children's good, as long as they should need to be under it.

        Sec. 64.  But what reason can hence advance this care of the parents

due to their off-spring into an absolute arbitrary dominion of the

father, whose power reaches no farther, than by such a discipline, as he

finds most effectual, to give such strength and health to their bodies,

such vigour and rectitude to their minds, as may best fit his children to

be most useful to themselves and others; and, if it be necessary to his

condition, to make them work, when they are able, for their own

subsistence.  But in this power the mother too has her share with the

father.

        Sec. 65.  Nay, this power so little belongs to the father by any

peculiar right of nature, but only as he is guardian of his children,

that when he quits his care of them, he loses his power over them, which

goes along with their nourishment and education, to which it is

inseparably annexed; and it belongs as much to the foster-father of an

exposed child, as to the natural father of another.  So little power does

the bare act of begetting give a man over his issue; if all his care ends

there, and this be all the title he hath to the name and authority of a

father.  And what will become of this paternal power in that part of the

world, where one woman hath more than one husband at a time? or in those

parts of America, where, when the husband and wife part, which happens

frequently, the children are all left to the mother, follow her, and are

wholly under her care and provision? If the father die whilst the

children are young, do they not naturally every where owe the same

obedience to their mother, during their minority, as to their father were

he alive? and will any one say, that the mother hath a legislative power

over her children? that she can make standing rules, which shall be of

perpetual obligation, by which they ought to regulate all the concerns of

their property, and bound their liberty all the course of their lives? or

can she inforce the observation of them with capital punishments? for

this is the proper power of the magistrate, of which the father hath not

so much as the shadow.  His command over his children is but temporary,

and reaches not their life or property: it is but a help to the weakness

and imperfection of their nonage, a discipline necessary to their

education: and though a father may dispose of his own possessions as he

pleases, when his children are out of danger of perishing for want, yet

his power extends not to the lives or goods, which either their own

industry, or another's bounty has made their's; nor to their liberty

neither, when they are once arrived to the infranchisement of the years

of discretion.  The father's empire then ceases, and he can from thence

forwards no more dispose of the liberty of his son, than that of any

other man: and it must be far from an absolute or perpetual jurisdiction,

from which a man may withdraw himself, having license from divine

authority to leave father and mother, and cleave to his wife.

        Sec. 66.  But though there be a time when a child comes to be as free

from subjection to the will and command of his father, as the father

himself is free from subjection to the will of any body else, and they

are each under no other restraint, but that which is common to them both,

whether it be the law of nature, or municipal law of their country; yet

this freedom exempts not a son from that honour which he ought, by the

law of God and nature, to pay his parents.  God having made the parents

instruments in his great design of continuing the race of mankind, and

the occasions of life to their children; as he hath laid on them an

obligation to nourish, preserve, and bring up their offspring; so he has

laid on the children a perpetual obligation of honouring their parents,

which containing in it an inward esteem and reverence to be shewn by all

outward expressions, ties up the child from any thing that may ever

injure or affront, disturb or endanger, the happiness or life of those

from whom he received his; and engages him in all actions of defence,

relief, assistance and comfort of those, by whose means he entered into

being, and has been made capable of any enjoyments of life: from this

obligation no state, no freedom can absolve children.  But this is very

far from giving parents a power of command over their children, or an

authority to make laws and dispose as they please of their lives or

liberties.  It is one thing to owe honour, respect, gratitude and

assistance; another to require an absolute obedience and submission.  The

honour due to parents, a monarch in his throne owes his mother; and yet

this lessens not his authority, nor subjects him to her government.

        Sec. 67.  The subjection of a minor places in the father a temporary

government, which terminates with the minority of the child: and the

honour due from a child, places in the parents a perpetual right to

respect, reverence, support and compliance too, more or less, as the

father's care, cost, and kindness in his education, has been more or

less.  This ends not with minority, but holds in all parts and conditions

of a man's life.  The want of distinguishing these two powers, viz. that

which the father hath in the right of tuition, during minority, and the

right of honour all his life, may perhaps have caused a great part of the

mistakes about this matter: for to speak properly of them, the first of

these is rather the privilege of children, and duty of parents, than any

prerogative of paternal power.  The nourishment and education of their

children is a charge so incumbent on parents for their children's good,

that nothing can absolve them from taking care of it: and though the

power of commanding and chastising them go along with it, yet God hath

woven into the principles of human nature such a tenderness for their

off-spring, that there is little fear that parents should use their power

with too much rigour; the excess is seldom on the severe side, the strong

byass of nature drawing the other way.  And therefore God almighty when

he would express his gentle dealing with the Israelites, he tells them,

that though he chastened them, he chastened them as a man chastens his

son, Deut. viii. 5. i.e. with tenderness and affection, and kept them

under no severer discipline than what was absolutely best for them, and

had been less kindness to have slackened.  This is that power to which

children are commanded obedience, that the pains and care of their

parents may not be increased, or ill rewarded.

        Sec. 68.  On the other side, honour and support, all that which

gratitude requires to return for the benefits received by and from them,

is the indispensable duty of the child, and the proper privilege of the

parents.  This is intended for the parents advantage, as the other is for

the child's; though education, the parents duty, seems to have most

power, because the ignorance and infirmities of childhood stand in need

of restraint and correction; which is a visible exercise of rule, and a

kind of dominion.  And that duty which is comprehended in the word

honour, requires less obedience, though the obligation be stronger on

grown, than younger children: for who can think the command, Children

obey your parents, requires in a man, that has children of his own, the

same submission to his father, as it does in his yet young children to

him; and that by this precept he were bound to obey all his father's

commands, if, out of a conceit of authority, he should have the

indiscretion to treat him still as a boy?

        Sec. 69.  The first part then of paternal power, or rather duty, which

is education, belongs so to the father, that it terminates at a certain

season; when the business of education is over, it ceases of itself, and

is also alienable before: for a man may put the tuition of his son in

other hands; and he that has made his son an apprentice to another, has

discharged him, during that time, of a great part of his obedience both

to himself and to his mother.  But all the duty of honour, the other

part, remains never the less entire to them; nothing can cancel that: it

is so inseparable from them both, that the father's authority cannot

dispossess the mother of this right, nor can any man discharge his son

from honouring her that bore him.  But both these are very far from a

power to make laws, and enforcing them with penalties, that may reach

estate, liberty, limbs and life.  The power of commanding ends with

nonage; and though, after that, honour and respect, support and defence,

and whatsoever gratitude can oblige a man to, for the highest benefits he

is naturally capable of, be always due from a son to his parents; yet all

this puts no scepter into the father's hand, no sovereign power of

commanding.  He has no dominion over his son's property, or actions; nor

any right, that his will should prescribe to his son's in all things;

however it may become his son in many things, not very inconvenient to

him and his family, to pay a deference to it.

        Sec. 70.  A man may owe honour and respect to an ancient, or wise man;

defence to his child or friend; relief and support to the distressed; and

gratitude to a benefactor, to such a degree, that all he has, all he can

do, cannot sufficiently pay it: but all these give no authority, no right

to any one, of making laws over him from whom they are owing.  And it is

plain, all this is due not only to the bare title of father; not only

because, as has been said, it is owing to the mother too; but because

these obligations to parents, and the degrees of what is required of

children, may be varied by the different care and kindness, trouble and

expence, which is often employed upon one child more than another.

        Sec. 71.  This shews the reason how it comes to pass, that parents in

societies, where they themselves are subjects, retain a power over their

children, and have as much right to their subjection, as those who are in

the state of nature.  Which could not possibly be, if all political power

were only paternal, and that in truth they were one and the same thing:

for then, all paternal power being in the prince, the subject could

naturally have none of it.  But these two powers, political and paternal,

are so perfectly distinct and separate; are built upon so different

foundations, and given to so different ends, that every subject that is a

father, has as much a paternal power over his children, as the prince has

over his: and every prince, that has parents, owes them as much filial

duty and obedience, as the meanest of his subjects do to their's; and can

therefore contain not any part or degree of that kind of dominion, which

a prince or magistrate has over his subject.

        Sec. 72.  Though the obligation on the parents to bring up their

children, and the obligation on children to honour their parents, contain

all the power on the one hand, and submission on the other, which are

proper to this relation, yet there is another power ordinarily in the

father, whereby he has a tie on the obedience of his children; which tho'

it be common to him with other men, yet the occasions of shewing it,

almost consich tho' it be common to him with other men, yet the occasions

of shewing it, almost constantly happening to fathers in their private

families, and the instances of it elsewhere being rare, and less taken

notice of, it passes in the world for a part of paternal jurisdiction.

And this is the power men generally have to bestow their estates on those

who please them best; the possession of the father being the expectation

and inheritance of the children, ordinarily in certain proportions,

according to the law and custom of each country; yet it is commonly in

the father's power to bestow it with a more sparing or liberal hand,

according as the behaviour of this or that child hath comported with his

will and humour.

        Sec. 73.  This is no small tie on the obedience of children: and there

being always annexed to the enjoyment of land, a submission to the

government of the country, of which that land is a part; it has been

commonly supposed, that a father could oblige his posterity to that

government, of which he himself was a subject, and that his compact held

them; whereas, it being only a necessary condition annexed to the land,

and the inheritance of an estate which is under that government, reaches

only those who will take it on that condition, and so is no natural tie

or engagement, but a voluntary submission: for every man's children being

by nature as free as himself, or any of his ancestors ever were, may,

whilst they are in that freedom, choose what society they will join

themselves to, what common-wealth they will put themselves under.  But if

they will enjoy the inheritance of their ancestors, they must take it on

the same terms their ancestors had it, and submit to all the conditions

annexed to such a possession.  By this power indeed fathers oblige their

children to obedience to themselves, even when they are past minority,

and most commonly too subject them to this or that political power: but

neither of these by any peculiar right of fatherhood, but by the reward

they have in their hands to inforce and recompence such a compliance; and

is no more power than what a French man has over an English man, who by

the hopes of an estate he will leave him, will certainly have a strong

tie on his obedience: and if, when it is left him, he will enjoy it, he

must certainly take it upon the conditions annexed to the possession of

land in that country where it lies, whether it be France or England.

        Sec. 74.  To conclude then, tho' the father's power of commanding

extends no farther than the minority of his children, and to a degree

only fit for the discipline and government of that age; and tho' that

honour and respect, and all that which the Latins called piety, which

they indispensably owe to their parents all their life-time, and in all

estates, with all that support and defence is due to them, gives the

father no power of governing, i.e.  making laws and enacting penalties on

his children; though by all this he has no dominion over the property or

actions of his son: yet it is obvious to conceive how easy it was, in the

first ages of the world, and in places still, where the thinness of

people gives families leave to separate into unpossessed quarters, and

they have room to remove or plant themselves in yet vacant habitations,

for the father of the family to become the prince of* it; he had been a

ruler from the beginning of the infancy of his children: and since

without some government it would be hard for them to live together, it

was likeliest it should, by the express or tacit consent of the children

when they were grown up, be in the father, where it seemed without any

change barely to continue; when indeed nothing more was required to it,

than the permitting the father to exercise alone, in his family, that

executive power of the law of nature, which every free man naturally

hath, and by that permission resigning up to him a monarchical power,

whilst they remained in it.  But that this was not by any paternal right,

but only by the consent of his children, is evident from hence, that no

body doubts, but if a stranger, whom chance or business had brought to

his family, had there killed any of his children, or committed any other

fact, he might condemn and put him to death, or other-wise have punished

him, as well as any of his children; which it was impossible he should do

by virtue of any paternal authority over one who was not his child, but

by virtue of that executive power of the law of nature, which, as a man,

he had a right to: and he alone could punish him in his family, where the

respect of his children had laid by the exercise of such a power, to give

way to the dignity and authority they were willing should remain in him,

above the rest of his family.          (*It is no improbable opinion therefore,

which the archphilosopher was of, that the chief person in every houshold

was always, as it were, a king: so when numbers of housholds joined

themselves in civil societies together, kings were the first kind of

governors amongst them, which is also, as it seemeth, the reason why the

name of fathers continued still in them, who, of fathers, were made

rulers; as also the ancient custom of governors to do as Melchizedec, and

being kings, to exercise the office of priests, which fathers did at the

first, grew perhaps by the same occasion.  Howbeit, this is not the only

kind of regiment that has been received in the world.  The inconveniences

of one kind have caused sundry others to be devised; so that in a word,

all public regiment, of what kind soever, seemeth evidently to have risen

from the deliberate advice, consultation and composition between men,

judging it convenient and behoveful; there being no impossibility in

nature considered by itself, but that man might have lived without any

public regiment, Hooker's Eccl. Pol. lib. i. sect. 10.)

        Sec. 75.  Thus it was easy, and almost natural for children, by a

tacit, and scarce avoidable consent, to make way for the father's

authority and government.  They had been accustomed in their childhood to

follow his direction, and to refer their little differences to him, and

when they were men, who fitter to rule them? Their little properties, and

less covetousness, seldom afforded greater controversies; and when any

should arise, where could they have a fitter umpire than he, by whose

care they had every one been sustained and brought up, and who had a

tenderness for them all? It is no wonder that they made no distinction

betwixt minority and full age; nor looked after one and twenty, or any

other age that might make them the free disposers of themselves and

fortunes, when they could have no desire to be out of their pupilage: the

government they had been under, during it, continued still to be more

their protection than restraint; and they could no where find a greater

security to their peace, liberties, and fortunes, than in the rule of a

father.

        Sec. 76.  Thus the natural fathers of families, by an insensible

change, became the politic monarchs of them too: and as they chanced to

live long, and leave able and worthy heirs, for several successions, or

otherwise; so they laid the foundations of hereditary, or elective

kingdoms, under several constitutions and mannors, according as chance,

contrivance, or occasions happened to mould them.  But if princes have

their titles in their fathers right, and it be a sufficient proof of the

natural right of fathers to political authority, because they commonly

were those in whose hands we find, de facto, the exercise of government:

I say, if this argument be good, it will as strongly prove, that all

princes, nay princes only, ought to be priests, since it is as certain,

that in the beginning, the father of the family was priest, as that he

was ruler in his own houshold.

 

 

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CHAP.  VII.

 

                Of Political or Civil Society.

 

        Sec. 77.  GOD having made man such a creature, that in his own

judgment, it was not good for him to be alone, put him under strong

obligations of necessity, convenience, and inclination to drive him into

society, as well as fitted him with understanding and language to

continue and enjoy it.  The first society was between man and wife, which

gave beginning to that between parents and children; to which, in time,

that between master and servant came to be added: and though all these

might, and commonly did meet together, and make up but one family,

wherein the master or mistress of it had some sort of rule proper to a

family; each of these, or all together, came short of political society,

as we shall see, if we consider the different ends, ties, and bounds of

each of these.

        Sec. 78.  Conjugal society is made by a voluntary compact between man

and woman; and tho' it consist chiefly in such a communion and right in

one another's bodies as is necessary to its chief end, procreation; yet

it draws with it mutual support and assistance, and a communion of

interests too, as necessary not only to unite their care and affection,

but also necessary to their common off-spring, who have a right to be

nourished, and maintained by them, till they are able to provide for

themselves.

        Sec. 79.  For the end of conjunction, between male and female, being

not barely procreation, but the continuation of the species; this

conjunction betwixt male and female ought to last, even after

procreation, so long as is necessary to the nourishment and support of

the young ones, who are to be sustained even after procreation, so long

as is necessary to the nourishment and support of the young ones, who are

to be sustained by those that got them, till they are able to shift and

provide for themselves.  This rule, which the infinite wise maker hath

set to the works of his hands, we find the inferior creatures steadily

obey.  In those viviparous animals which feed on grass, the conjunction

between male and female lasts no longer than the very act of copulation;

because the teat of the dam being sufficient to nourish the young, till

it be able to feed on grass, the male only begets, but concerns not

himself for the female or young, to whose sustenance he can contribute

nothing.  But in beasts of prey the conjunction lasts longer: because the

dam not being able well to subsist herself, and nourish her numerous

off-spring by her own prey alone, a more laborious, as well as more

dangerous way of living, than by feeding on grass, the assistance of the

male is necessary to the maintenance of their common family, which cannot

subsist till they are able to prey for themselves, but by the joint care

of male and female.  The same is to be observed in all birds, (except

some domestic ones, where plenty of food excuses the cock from feeding,

and taking care of the young brood) whose young needing food in the nest,

the cock and hen continue mates, till the young are able to use their

wing, and provide for themselves.

        Sec. 80.  And herein I think lies the chief, if not the only reason,

why the male and female in mankind are tied to a longer conjunction than

other creatures, viz.  because the female is capable of conceiving, and

de facto is commonly with child again, and brings forth too a new birth,

long before the former is out of a dependency for support on his parents

help, and able to shift for himself, and has all the assistance is due to

him from his parents: whereby the father, who is bound to take care for

those he hath begot, is under an obligation to continue in conjugal

society with the same woman longer than other creatures, whose young

being able to subsist of themselves, before the time of procreation

returns again, the conjugal bond dissolves of itself, and they are at

liberty, till Hymen at his usual anniversary season summons them again to

chuse new mates.  Wherein one cannot but admire the wisdom of the great

Creator, who having given to man foresight, and an ability to lay up for

the future, as well as to supply the present necessity, hath made it

necessary, that society of man and wife should be more lasting, than of

male and female amongst other creatures; that so their industry might be

encouraged, and their interest better united, to make provision and lay

up goods for their common issue, which uncertain mixture, or easy and

frequent solutions of conjugal society would mightily disturb.

        Sec. 81.  But tho' these are ties upon mankind, which make the

conjugal bonds more firm and lasting in man, than the other species of

animals; yet it would give one reason to enquire, why this compact, where

procreation and education are secured, and inheritance taken care for,

may not be made determinable, either by consent, or at a certain time, or

upon certain conditions, as well as any other voluntary compacts, there

being no necessity in the nature of the thing, nor to the ends of it,

that it should always be for life; I mean, to such as are under no

restraint of any positive law, which ordains all such contracts to be

perpetual.

        Sec. 82.  But the husband and wife, though they have but one common

concern, yet having different understandings, will unavoidably sometimes

have different wills too; it therefore being necessary that the last

determination, i. e.  the rule, should be placed somewhere; it naturally

falls to the man's share, as the abler and the stronger.  But this

reaching but to the things of their common interest and property, leaves

the wife in the full and free possession of what by contract is her

peculiar right, and gives the husband no more power over her life than

she has over his; the power of the husband being so far from that of an

absolute monarch, that the wife has in many cases a liberty to separate

from him, where natural right, or their contract allows it; whether that

contract be made by themselves in the state of nature, or by the customs

or laws of the country they live in; and the children upon such

separation fall to the father or mother's lot, as such contract does

determine.

        Sec. 83.  For all the ends of marriage being to be obtained under

politic government, as well as in the state of nature, the civil

magistrate cloth not abridge the right or power of either naturally

necessary to those ends, viz.  procreation and mutual support and

assistance whilst they are together; but only decides any controversy

that may arise between man and wife about them.  If it were otherwise,

and that absolute sovereignty and power of life and death naturally

belonged to the husband, and were necessary to the society between man

and wife, there could be no matrimony in any of those countries where the

husband is allowed no such absolute authority.  But the ends of matrimony

requiring no such power in the husband, the condition of conjugal society

put it not in him, it being not at all necessary to that state.  Conjugal

society could subsist and attain its ends without it; nay, community of

goods, and the power over them, mutual assistance and maintenance, and

other things belonging to conjugal society, might be varied and regulated

by that contract which unites man and wife in that society, as far as may

consist with procreation and the bringing up of children till they could

shift for themselves; nothing being necessary to any society, that is not

necessary to the ends for which it is made.

        Sec. 84.  The society betwixt parents and children, and the distinct

rights and powers belonging respectively to them, I have treated of so

largely, in the foregoing chapter, that I shall not here need to say any

thing of it.  And I think it is plain, that it is far different from a

politic society.

        Sec. 85.  Master and servant are names as old as history, but given to

those of far different condition; for a freeman makes himself a servant

to another, by selling him, for a certain time, the service he undertakes

to do, in exchange for wages he is to receive: and though this commonly

puts him into the family of his master, and under the ordinary discipline

thereof; yet it gives the master but a temporary power over him, and no

greater than what is contained in the contract between them.  But there

is another sort of servants, which by a peculiar name we call slaves, who

being captives taken in a just war, are by the right of nature subjected

to the absolute dominion and arbitrary power of their masters.  These men

having, as I say, forfeited their lives, and with it their liberties, and

lost their estates; and being in the state of slavery, not capable of any

property, cannot in that state be considered as any part of civil

society; the chief end whereof is the preservation of property.

        Sec. 86.  Let us therefore consider a master of a family with all

these subordinate relations of wife, children, servants, and slaves,

united under the domestic rule of a family; which, what resemblance

soever it may have in its order, offices, and number too, with a little

common-wealth, yet is very far from it, both in its constitution, power

and end: or if it must be thought a monarchy, and the paterfamilias the

absolute monarch in it, absolute monarchy will have but a very shattered

and short power, when it is plain, by what has been said before, that the

master of the family has a very distinct and differently limited power,

both as to time and extent, over those several persons that are in it;

for excepting the slave (and the family is as much a family, and his

power as paterfamilias as great, whether there be any slaves in his

family or no) he has no legislative power of life and death over any of

them, and none too but what a mistress of a family may have as well as

he.  And he certainly can have no absolute power over the whole family,

who has but a very limited one over every individual in it.  But how a

family, or any other society of men, differ from that which is properly

political society, we shall best see, by considering wherein political

society itself consists.

        Sec. 87.  Man being born, as has been proved, with a title to perfect

freedom, and an uncontrouled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges

of the law of nature, equally with any other man, or number of men in the

world, hath by nature a power, not only to preserve his property, that

is, his life, liberty and estate, against the injuries and attempts of

other men; but to judge of, and punish the breaches of that law in

others, as he is persuaded the offence deserves, even with death itself,

in crimes where the heinousness of the fact, in his opinion, requires

it.  But because no political society can be, nor subsist, without having

in itself the power to preserve the property, and in order thereunto,

punish the offences of all those of that society; there, and there only

is political society, where every one of the members hath quitted this

natural power, resigned it up into the hands of the community in all

cases that exclude him not from appealing for protection to the law

established by it.  And thus all private judgment of every particular

member being excluded, the community comes to be umpire, by settled

standing rules, indifferent, and the same to all parties; and by men

having authority from the community, for the execution of those rules,

decides all the differences that may happen between any members of that

society concerning any matter of right; and punishes those offences which

any member hath committed against the society, with such penalties as the

law has established: whereby it is easy to discern, who are, and who are

not, in political society together.  Those who are united into one body,

and have a common established law and judicature to appeal to, with

authority to decide controversies between them, and punish offenders, are

in civil society one with another: but those who have no such common

appeal, I mean on earth, are still in the state of nature, each being,

where there is no other, judge for himself, and executioner; which is, as

I have before shewed it, the perfect state of nature.

        Sec. 88.  And thus the common-wealth comes by a power to set down what

punishment shall belong to the several transgressions which they think

worthy of it, committed amongst the members of that society, (which is

the power of making laws) as well as it has the power to punish any

injury done unto any of its members, by any one that is not of it, (which

is the power of war and peace;) and all this for the preservation of the

property of all the members of that society, as far as is possible.  But

though every man who has entered into civil society, and is become a

member of any commonwealth, has thereby quitted his power to punish

offences, against the law of nature, in prosecution of his own private

judgment, yet with the judgment of offences, which he has given up to the

legislative in all cases, where he can appeal to the magistrate, he has

given a right to the common-wealth to employ his force, for the execution

of the judgments of the common-wealth, whenever he shall be called to it;

which indeed are his own judgments, they being made by himself, or his

representative.  And herein we have the original of the legislative and

executive power of civil society, which is to judge by standing laws, how

far offences are to be punished, when committed within the common-wealth;

and also to determine, by occasional judgments founded on the present

circumstances of the fact, how far injuries from without are to be

vindicated; and in both these to employ all the force of all the members,

when there shall be need.

        Sec. 89.  Where-ever therefore any number of men are so united into

one society, as to quit every one his executive power of the law of

nature, and to resign it to the public, there and there only is a

political, or civil society.  And this is done, where-ever any number of

men, in the state of nature, enter into society to make one people, one

body politic, under one supreme government; or else when any one joins

himself to, and incorporates with any government already made: for hereby

he authorizes the society, or which is all one, the legislative thereof,

to make laws for him, as the public good of the society shall require; to

the execution whereof, his own assistance (as to his own decrees) is

due.  And this puts men out of a state of nature into that of a

common-wealth, by setting up a judge on earth, with authority to

determine all the controversies, and redress the injuries that may happen

to any member of the commonwealth; which judge is the legislative, or

magistrates appointed by it.  And where-ever there are any number of men,

however associated, that have no such decisive power to appeal to, there

they are still in the state of nature.

        Sec. 90.  Hence it is evident, that absolute monarchy, which by some

men is counted the only government in the world, is indeed inconsistent

with civil society, and so can be no form of civil-government at all: for

the end of civil society, being to avoid, and remedy those

inconveniencies of the state of nature, which necessarily follow from

every man's being judge in his own case, by setting up a known authority,

to which every one of that society may appeal upon any injury received,

or controversy that may arise, and which every one of the* society ought

to obey; where-ever any persons are, who have not such an authority to

appeal to, for the decision of any difference between them, there those

persons are still in the state of nature; and so is every absolute

prince, in respect of those who are under his dominion.          (*The public

power of all society is above every soul contained in the same society;

and the principal use of that power is, to give laws unto all that are

under it, which laws in such cases we must obey, unless there be reason

shewed which may necessarily inforce, that the law of reason, or of God,

doth enjoin the contrary, Hook. Eccl. Pol. l. i. sect. 16.)

        Sec. 91.  For he being supposed to have all, both legislative and

executive power in himself alone, there is no judge to be found, no

appeal lies open to any one, who may fairly, and indifferently, and with

authority decide, and from whose decision relief and redress may be

expected of any injury or inconviency, that may be suffered from the

prince, or by his order: so that such a man, however intitled, Czar, or

Grand Seignior, or how you please, is as much in the state of nature,

with all under his dominion, as he is with therest of mankind: for

where-ever any two men are, who have no standing rule, and common judge

to appeal to on earth, for the determination of controversies of right

betwixt them, there they are still in the state of* nature, and under all

the inconveniencies of it, with only this woful difference to the

subject, or rather slave of an absolute prince: that whereas, in the

ordinary state of nature, he has a liberty to judge of his right, and

according to the best of his power, to maintain it; now, whenever his

property is invaded by the will and order of his monarch, he has not only

no appeal, as those in society ought to have, but as if he were degraded

from the common state of rational creatures, is denied a liberty to judge

of, or to defend his right; and so is exposed to all the misery and

inconveniencies, that a man can fear from one, who being in the

unrestrained state of nature, is yet corrupted with flattery, and armed

with power.

          (*To take away all such mutual grievances, injuries and wrongs, i.e.

such as attend men in the state of nature, there was no way but only by

growing into composition and agreement amongst themselves, by ordaining

some kind of govemment public, and by yielding themselves subject

thereunto, that unto whom they granted authority to rule and govem, by

them the peace, tranquillity and happy estate of the rest might be

procured.  Men always knew that where force and injury was offered, they

might be defenders of themselves; they knew that however men may seek

their own commodity, yet if this were done with injury unto others, it

was not to be suffered, but by all men, and all good means to be

withstood.  Finally, they knew that no man might in reason take upon him

to determine his own right, and according to his own determination

proceed in maintenance thereof, in as much as every man is towards

himself, and them whom he greatly affects, partial; and therefore that

strifes and troubles would be endless, except they gave their common

consent, all to be ordered by some, whom they should agree upon, without

which consent there would be no reason that one man should take upon him

to be lord or judge over another, Hooker's Eccl. Pol. l. i. sect. 10.)

        Sec. 92.  For he that thinks absolute power purifies men's blood, and

corrects the baseness of human nature, need read but the history of this,

or any other age, to be convinced of the contrary.  He that would have

been insolent and injurious in the woods of America, would not probably

be much better in a throne; where perhaps learning and religion shall be

found out to justify all that he shall do to his subjects, and the sword

presently silence all those that dare question it: for what the

protection of absolute monarchy is, what kind of fathers of their

countries it makes princes to be and to what a degree of happiness and

security it carries civil society, where this sort of government is grown

to perfection, he that will look into the late relation of Ceylon, may

easily see.

        Sec. 93.  In absolute monarchies indeed, as well as other governments

of the world, the subjects have an appeal to the law, and judges to

decide any controversies, and restrain any violence that may happen

betwixt the subjects themselves, one amongst another.  This every one

thinks necessary, and believes he deserves to be thought a declared enemy

to society and mankind, who should go about to take it away.  But whether

this be from a true love of mankind and society, and such a charity as we

owe all one to another, there is reason to doubt: for this is no more

than what every man, who loves his own power, profit, or greatness, may

and naturally must do, keep those animals from hurting, or destroying one

another, who labour and drudge only for his pleasure and advantage; and

so are taken care of, not out of any love the master has for them, but

love of himself, and the profit they bring him: for if it be asked, what

security, what fence is there, in such a state, against the violence and

oppression of this absolute ruler? the very question can scarce be

borne.  They are ready to tell you, that it deserves death only to ask

after safety.  Betwixt subject and subject, they will grant, there must

be measures, laws and judges, for their mutual peace and security: but as

for the ruler, he ought to be absolute, and is above all such

circumstances; because he has power to do more hurt and wrong, it is

right when he does it.  To ask how you may be guarded from harm, or

injury, on that side where the strongest hand is to do it, is presently

the voice of faction and rebellion: as if when men quitting the state of

nature entered into society, they agreed that all of them but one, should

be under the restraint of laws, but that he should still retain all the

liberty of the state of nature, increased with power, and made licentious

by impunity.  This is to think, that men are so foolish, that they take

care to avoid what mischiefs may be done them by pole-cats, or foxes; but

are content, nay, think it safety, to be devoured by lions.

        Sec. 94.  But whatever flatterers may talk to amuse people's

understandings, it hinders not men from feeling; and when they perceive,

that any man, in what station soever, is out of the bounds of the civil

society which they are of, and that they have no appeal on earth against

any harm, they may receive from him, they are apt to think themselves in

the state of nature, in respect of him whom they find to be so; and to

take care, as soon as they can, to have that safety and security in civil

society, for which it was first instituted, and for which only they

entered into it.  And therefore, though perhaps at first, (as shall be

shewed more at large hereafter in the following part of this discourse)

some one good and excellent man having got a pre-eminency amongst the

rest, had this deference paid to his goodness and virtue, as to a kind of

natural authority, that the chief rule, with arbitration of their

differences, by a tacit consent devolved into his hands, without any

other caution, but the assurance they had of his uprightness and wisdom;

yet when time, giving authority, and (as some men would persuade us)

sacredness of customs, which the negligent, and unforeseeing innocence of

the first ages began, had brought in successors of another stamp, the

people finding their properties not secure under the government, as then

it was, (whereas government has no other end but the preservation of *

property) could never be safe nor at rest, nor think themselves in civil

society, till the legislature was placed in collective bodies of men,

call them senate, parliament, or what you please.  By which means every

single person became subject, equally with other the meanest men, to

those laws, which he himself, as part of the legislative, had

established; nor could any one, by his own authority; avoid the force of

the law, when once made; nor by any pretence of superiority plead

exemption, thereby to license his own, or the miscarriages of any of his

dependents.** No man in civil society can be exempted from the laws of

it: for if any man may do what he thinks fit, and there be no appeal on

earth, for redress or security against any harm he shall do; I ask,

whether he be not perfectly still in the state of nature, and so can be

no part or member of that civil society; unless any one will say, the

state of nature and civil society are one and the same thing, which I

have never yet found any one so great a patron of anarchy as to affirm.

          (*At the first, when some certain kind of regiment was once

appointed, it may be that nothing was then farther thought upon for the

manner of goveming, but all permitted unto their wisdom and discretion,

which were to rule, till by experience they found this for all parts very

inconvenient, so as the thing which they had devised for a remedy, did

indeed but increase the sore, which it should have cured.  They saw, that

to live by one man's will, became the cause of all men's misery.  This

constrained them to come unto laws, wherein all men might see their duty

beforehand, and know the penalties of transgressing them.  Hooker's Eccl.

Pol. l. i. sect. 10.)

          (**Civil law being the act of the whole body politic, cloth therefore

over-rule each several part of the same body.  Hooker, ibid.)

 

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CHAP.  VIII.

 

          Of the Beginning of Political Societies.

 

        Sec. 95.  MEN being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal, and

independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the

political power of another, without his own consent.  The only way

whereby any one divests himself of his natural liberty, and puts on the

bonds of civil society, is by agreeing with other men to join and unite

into a community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one

amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater

security against any, that are not of it.  This any number of men may do,

because it injures not the freedom of the rest; they are left as they

were in the liberty of the state of nature.  When any number of men have

so consented to make one community or government, they are thereby

presently incorporated, and make one body politic, wherein the majority

have a right to act and conclude the rest.

        Sec. 96.  For when any number of men have, by the consent of every

individual, made a community, they have thereby made that community one

body, with a power to act as one body, which is only by the will and

determination of the majority: for that which acts any community, being

only the consent of the individuals of it, and it being necessary to that

which is one body to move one way; it is necessary the body should move

that way whither the greater force carries it, which is the consent of

the majority: or else it is impossible it should act or continue one

body, one community, which the consent of every individual that united

into it, agreed that it should; and so every one is bound by that consent

to be concluded by the majority.  And therefore we see, that in

assemblies, impowered to act by positive laws, where no number is set by

that positive law which impowers them, the act of the majority passes for

the act of the whole, and of course determines, as having, by the law of

nature and reason, the power of the whole.

        Sec. 97.  And thus every man, by consenting with others to make one

body politic under one government, puts himself under an obligation, to

every one of that society, to submit to the determination of the

majority, and to be concluded by it; or else this original compact,

whereby he with others incorporates into one society, would signify

nothing, and be no compact, if he be left free, and under no other ties

than he was in before in the state of nature.  For what appearance would

there be of any compact? what new engagement if he were no farther tied

by any decrees of the society, than he himself thought fit, and did

actually consent to? This would be still as great a liberty, as he

himself had before his compact, or any one else in the state of nature

hath, who may submit himself, and consent to any acts of it if he thinks

fit.

        Sec. 98.  For if the consent of the majority shall not, in reason, be

received as the act of the whole, and conclude every individual; nothing

but the consent of every individual can make any thing to be the act of

the whole: but such a consent is next to impossible ever to be had, if we

consider the infirmities of health, and avocations of business, which in

a number, though much less than that of a common-wealth, will necessarily

keep many away from the public assembly.  To which if we add the variety

of opinions, and contrariety of interests, which unavoidably happen in

all collections of men, the coming into society upon such terms would be

only like Cato's coming into the theatre, only to go out again.  Such a

constitution as this would make the mighty Leviathan of a shorter

duration, than the feeblest creatures, and not let it outlast the day it

was born in: which cannot be supposed, till we can think, that rational

creatures should desire and constitute societies only to be dissolved:

for where the majority cannot conclude the rest, there they cannot act as

one body, and consequently will be immediately dissolved again.

        Sec. 99.  Whosoever therefore out of a state of nature unite into a

community, must be understood to give up all the power, necessary to the

ends for which they unite into society, to the majority of the community,

unless they expresly agreed in any number greater than the majority.  And

this is done by barely agreeing to unite into one political society,

which is all the compact that is, or needs be, between the individuals,

that enter into, or make up a commonwealth.  And thus that, which begins

and actually constitutes any political society, is nothing but the

consent of any number of freemen capable of a majority to unite and

incorporate into such a society.  And this is that, and that only, which

did, or could give beginning to any lawful government in the world.

        Sec. 100.  To this I find two objections made.        First, That there are

no instances to be found in story, of a company of men independent, and

equal one amongst another, that met together, and in this way began and

set up a government.

        Secondly, It is impossible of right, that men should do so, because

all men being born under government, they are to submit to that, and are

not at liberty to begin a new one.

        Sec. 101.  To the first there is this to answer, That it is not at all

to be wondered, that history gives us but a very little account of men,

that lived together in the state of nature.  The inconveniences of that

condition, and the love and want of society, no sooner brought any number

of them together, but they presently united and incorporated, if they

designed to continue together.  And if we may not suppose men ever to

have been in the state of nature, because we hear not much of them in

such a state, we may as well suppose the armies of Salmanasser or Xerxes

were never children, because we hear little of them, till they were men,

and imbodied in armies.  Government is every where antecedent to records,

and letters seldom come in amongst a people till a long continuation of

civil society has, by other more necessary arts, provided for their

safety, ease, and plenty: and then they begin to look after the history

of their founders, and search into their original, when they have

outlived the memory of it: for it is with commonwealths as with

particular persons, they are commonly ignorant of their own births and

infancies: and if they know any thing of their original, they are

beholden for it, to the accidental records that others have kept of it.

And those that we have, of the beginning of any polities in the world,

excepting that of the Jews, where God himself immediately interposed, and

which favours not at all paternal dominion, are all either plain

instances of such a beginning as I have mentioned, or at least have

manifest footsteps of it.

        Sec. 102.  He must shew a strange inclination to deny evident matter

of fact, when it agrees not with his hypothesis, who will not allow, that

shew a strange inclination to deny evident matter of fact, when it agrees

not with his hypothesis, who will not allow, that the beginning of Rome

and Venice were by the uniting together of several men free and

independent one of another, amongst whom there was no natural superiority

or subjection.  And if Josephus Acosta's word may be taken, he tells us,

that in many parts of America there was no government at all.  There are

great and apparent conjectures, says he, that these men, speaking of

those of Peru, for a long time had neither kings nor commonwealths, but

lived in troops, as they do this day in Florida, the Cheriquanas, those

of Brazil, and many other nations, which have no certain kings, but as

occasion is offered, in peace or war, they choose their captains as they

please, 1.  i.  c.  25.  If it be said, that every man there was born

subject to his father, or the head of his family; that the subjection due

from a child to a father took not away his freedom of uniting into what

political society he thought fit, has been already proved.  But be that

as it will, these men, it is evident, were actually free; and whatever

superiority some politicians now would place in any of them, they

themselves claimed it not, but by consent were all equal, till by the

same consent they set rulers over themselves.  So that their politic

societies all began from a voluntary union, and the mutual agreement of

men freely acting in the choice of their governors, and forms of

government.

        Sec. 103.  And I hope those who went away from Sparta with Palantus,

mentioned by Justin, 1. iii. c. 4.  will be allowed to have been freemen

independent one of another, and to have set up a government over

themselves, by their own consent.  Thus I have given several examples,

out of history, of people free and in the state of nature, that being met

together incorporated and began a commonwealth.  And if the want of such

instances be an argument to prove that government were not, nor could not

be so begun, I suppose the contenders for paternal empire were better let

it alone, than urge it against natural liberty: for if they can give so

many instances, out of history, of governments begun upon paternal right,

I think (though at best an argument from what has been, to what should of

right be, has no great force) one might, without any great danger, yield

them the cause.  But if I might advise them in the case, they would do

well not to search too much into the original of governments, as they

have begun de facto, lest they should find, at the foundation of most of

them, something very little favourable to the design they promote, and

such a power as they contend for.

        Sec. 104.  But to conclude, reason being plain on our side, that men

are naturally free, and the examples of history shewing, that the

governments of the world, that were begun in peace, had their beginning

laid on that foundation, and were made by the consent of the people;

there can be little room for doubt, either where the right is, or what

has been the opinion, or practice of mankind, about the first erecting of

governments.

        Sec. 105.  I will not deny, that if we look back as far as history

will direct us, towards the original of commonwealths, we shall generally

find them under the government and administration of one man.  And I am

also apt to believe, that where a family was numerous enough to subsist

by itself, and continued entire together, without mixing with others, as

it often happens, where there is much land, and few people, the

government commonly began in the father: for the father having, by the

law of nature, the same power with every man else to punish, as he

thought fit, any offences against that law, might thereby punish his

transgressing children, even when they were men, and out of their

pupilage; and they were very likely to submit to his punishment, and all

join with him against the offender, in their turns, giving him thereby

power to execute his sentence against any transgression, and so in effect

make him the law-maker, and governor over all that remained in

conjunction with his family.  He was fittest to be trusted; paternal

affection secured their property and interest under his care; and the

custom of obeying him, in their childhood, made it easier to submit to

him, rather than to any other.  If therefore they must have one to rule

them, as government is hardly to be avoided amongst men that live

together; who so likely to be the man as he that was their common father;

unless negligence, cruelty, or any other defect of mind or body made him

unfit for it? But when either the father died, and left his next heir,

for want of age, wisdom, courage, or any other qualities, less fit for

rule; or where several families met, and consented to continue together;

there, it is not to be doubted, but they used their natural freedom, to

set up him, whom they judged the ablest, and most likely, to rule well

over them.  Conformable hereunto we find the people of America, who

(living out of the reach of the conquering swords, and spreading

domination of the two great empires of Peru and Mexico) enjoyed their own

natural freedom, though, caeteris paribus, they commonly prefer the heir

of their deceased king; yet if they find him any way weak, or uncapable,

they pass him by, and set up the stoutest and bravest man for their

ruler.

        Sec. 106.  Thus, though looking back as far as records give us any

account of peopling the world, and the history of nations, we commonly

find the government to be in one hand; yet it destroys not that which I

affirm, viz. that the beginning of politic society depends upon the

consent of the individuals, to join into, and make one society; who, when

they are thus incorporated, might set up what form of government they

thought fit.  But this having given occasion to men to mistake, and

think, that by nature government was monarchical, and belonged to the

father, it may not be amiss here to consider, why people in the beginning

generally pitched upon this form, which though perhaps the father's

pre-eminency might, in the first institution of some commonwealths, give

a rise to, and place in the beginning, the power in one hand; yet it is

plain that the reason, that continued the form of government in a single

person, was not any regard, or respect to paternal authority; since all

petty monarchies, that is, almost all monarchies, near their original,

have been commonly, at least upon occasion, elective.

        Sec. 107.  First then, in the beginning of things, the father's

government of the childhood of those sprung from him, having accustomed

them to the rule of one man, and taught them that where it was exercised

with care and skill, with affection and love to those under it, it was

sufficient to procure and preserve to men all the political happiness

they sought for in society.  It was no wonder that they should pitch

upon, and naturally run into that form of government, which from their

infancy they had been all accustomed to; and which, by experience, they

had found both easy and safe.  To which, if we add, that monarchy being

simple, and most obvious to men, whom neither experience had instructed

in forms of government, nor the ambition or insolence of empire had

taught to beware of the encroachments of prerogative, or the

inconveniences of absolute power, which monarchy in succession was apt to

lay claim to, and bring upon them, it was not at all strange, that they

should not much trouble themselves to think of methods of restraining any

exorbitances of those to whom they had given the authority over them, and

of balancing the power of government, by placing several parts of it in

different hands.  They had neither felt the oppression of tyrannical

dominion, nor did the fashion of the age, nor their possessions, or way

of living, (which afforded little matter for covetousness or ambition)

give them any reason to apprehend or provide against it; and therefore it

is no wonder they put themselves into such a frame of government, as was

not only, as I said, most obvious and simple, but also best suited to

their present state and condition; which stood more in need of defence

against foreign invasions and injuries, than of multiplicity of laws.

The equality of a simple poor way of living, confining their desires

within the narrow bounds of each man's small property, made few

controversies, and so no need of many laws to decide them, or variety of

officers to superintend the process, or look after the execution of

justice, where there were but few trespasses, and few offenders.  Since

then those, who like one another so well as to join into society, cannot

but be supposed to have some acquaintance and friendship together, and

some trust one in another; they could not but have greater apprehensions

of others, than of one another: and therefore their first care and

thought cannot but be supposed to be, how to secure themselves against

foreign force.  It was natural for them to put themselves under a frame

of government which might best serve to that end, and chuse the wisest

and bravest man to conduct them in their wars, and lead them out against

their enemies, and in this chiefly be their ruler.

        Sec. 108.  Thus we see, that the kings of the Indians in America,

which is still a pattern of the first ages in Asia and Europe, whilst the

inhabitants were too few for the country, and want of people and money

gave men no temptation to enlarge their possessions of land, or contest

for wider extent of ground, are little more than generals of their

armies; and though they command absolutely in war, yet at home and in

time of peace they exercise very little dominion, and have but a very

moderate sovereignty, the resolutions of peace and war being ordinarily

either in the people, or in a council.  Tho' the war itself, which admits

not of plurality of governors, naturally devolves the command into the

king's sole authority.

        Sec. 109.  And thus in Israel itself, the chief business of their

judges, and first kings, seems to have been to be captains in war, and

leaders of their armies; which (besides what is signified by going out

and in before the people, which was, to march forth to war, and home

again in the heads of their forces) appears plainly in the story of

lephtha.  The Ammonites making war upon Israel, the Gileadites in fear

send to lephtha, a bastard of their family whom they had cast off, and

article with him, if he will assist them against the Ammonites, to make

him their ruler; which they do in these words, And the people made him

head and captain over them, Judg.  xi, ii.  which was, as it seems, all

one as to be judge.  And he judged Israel, judg.  xii.  7.  that is, was

their captain-general six years.  So when lotham upbraids the Shechemites

with the obligation they had to Gideon, who had been their judge and

ruler, he tells them, He fought for you, and adventured his life far, and

delivered you out of the hands of Midian, Judg.  ix.  17.  Nothing

mentioned of him but what he did as a general: and indeed that is all is

found in his history, or in any of the rest of the judges.  And Abimelech

particularly is called king, though at most he was but their general.

And when, being weary of the ill conduct of Samuel's sons, the children

of Israel desired a king, like all the nations to judge them, and to go

out before them, and to fight their battles, I.  Sam viii.  20.  God

granting their desire, says to Samuel, I will send thee a man, and thou

shalt anoint him to be captain over my people Israel, that he may save my

people out of the hands of the Philistines, ix.  16.  As if the only

business of a king had been to lead out their armies, and fight in their

defence; and accordingly at his inauguration pouring a vial of oil upon

him, declares to Saul, that the Lord had anointed him to be captain over

his inheritance, x. 1.  And therefore those, who after Saul's being

solemnly chosen and saluted king by the tribes at Mispah, were unwilling

to have him their king, made no other objection but this, How shall this

man save us? v. 27.  as if they should have said, this man is unfit to be

our king, not having skill and conduct enough in war, to be able to

defend us.  And when God resolved to transfer the government to David, it

is in these words, But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the Lord hath

sought him a man after his own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to

be captain over his people, xiii.  14.  As if the whole kingly authority

were nothing else but to be their general: and therefore the tribes who

had stuck to Saul's family, and opposed David's reign, when they came to

Hebron with terms of submission to him, they tell him, amongst other

arguments they had to submit to him as to their king, that he was in

effect their king in Saul's time, and therefore they had no reason but to

receive him as their king now.  Also (say they) in time past, when Saul

was king over us, thou wast he that reddest out and broughtest in Israel,

and the Lord said unto thee, Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou

shalt be a captain over Israel.

        Sec. 110.  Thus, whether a family by degrees grew up into a

common-wealth, and the fatherly authority being continued on to the elder

son, every one in his turn growing up under it, tacitly submitted to it,

and the easiness and equality of it not offending any one, every one

acquiesced, till time seemed to have confirmed it, and settled a right of

succession by prescription: or whether several families, or the

descendants of several families, whom chance, neighbourhood, or business

brought together, uniting into society, the need of a general, whose

conduct might defend them against their enemies in war, and the great

confidence the innocence and sincerity of that poor but virtuous age,

(such as are almost all those which begin governments, that ever come to

last in the world) gave men one of another, made the first beginners of

commonwealths generally put the rule into one man's hand, without any

other express limitation or restraint, but what the nature of the thing,

and the end of government required: which ever of those it was that at

first put the rule into the hands of a single person, certain it is no

body was intrusted with it but for the public good and safety, and to

those ends, in the infancies of commonwealths, those who had it commonly

used it.  And unless they had done so, young societies could not have

subsisted; without such nursing fathers tender and careful of the public

weal, all governments would have sunk under the weakness and infirmities

of their infancy, and the prince and the people had soon perished

together.

        Sec. 111.  But though the golden age (before vain ambition, and amor

sceleratus habendi, evil concupiscence, had corrupted men's minds into a

mistake of true power and honour) had more virtue, and consequently

better governors, as well as less vicious subjects, and there was then no

stretching prerogative on the one side, to oppress the people; nor

consequently on the other, any dispute about privilege, to lessen or

restrain the power of the magistrate, and so no contest betwixt rulers

and people about governors or goveernment: yet, when ambition and luxury

in future ages* would retain and increase the power, without doing the

business for which it was given; and aided by flattery, taught princes to

have distinct and separate interests from their people, men found it

necessary to examine more carefully the original and rights of

government; and to find out ways to restrain the exorbitances, and

prevent the abuses of that power, which they having intrusted in

another's hands only for their own good, they found was made use of to

hurt them.        (*At first, when some certain kind of regiment was once

approved, it may be nothing was then farther thought upon for the manner

of governing, but all permitted unto their wisdom and discretion which

were to rule, till by experience they found this for all parts very

inconvenient, so as the thing which they had devised for a remedy, did

indeed but increase the sore which it should have cured.  They saw, that

to live by one man's will, became the cause of all men's misery.  This

constrained them to come unto laws wherein all men might see their duty

before hand, and know the penalties of transgressing them.  Hooker's

Eccl. Pol. l. i. sect. 10.)  Sec. 112.  Thus we may see how probable it

is, that people that were naturally free, and by their own consent either

submitted to the government of their father, or united together out of

different families to make a government, should generally put the rule

into one man's hands, and chuse to be under the conduct of a single

person, without so much as by express conditions limiting or regulating

his power, which they thought safe enough in his honesty and prudence;

though they never dreamed of monarchy being lure Divino, which we never

heard of among mankind, till it was revealed to us by the divinity of

this last age; nor ever allowed paternal power to have a right to

dominion, or to be the foundation of all government.  And thus much may

suffice to shew, that as far as we have any light from history, we have

reason to conclude, that all peaceful beginnings of government have been

laid in the consent of the people.  I say peaceful, because I shall have

occasion in another place to speak of conquest, which some esteem a way

of beginning of governments.        The other objection I find urged against

the beginning of polities, in the way I have mentioned, is this, viz.

        Sec. 113.  That all men being born under government, some or other, it

is impossible any of them should ever be free, and at liberty to unite

together, and begin a new one, or ever be able to erect a lawful

government.        If this argument be good; I ask, how came so many lawful

monarchies into the world? for if any body, upon this supposition, can

shew me any one man in any age of the world free to begin a lawful

monarchy, I will be bound to shew him ten other free men at liberty, at

the same time to unite and begin a new government under a regal, or any

other form; it being demonstration, that if any one, born under the

dominion of another, may be so free as to have a right to command others

in a new and distinct empire, every one that is born under the dominion

of another may be so free too, and may become a ruler, or subject, of a

distinct separate government.  And so by this their own principle, either

all men, however born, are free, or else there is but one lawful prince,

one lawful government in the world.  And then they have nothing to do,

but barely to shew us which that is; which when they have done, I doubt

not but all mankind will easily agree to pay obedience to him.

        Sec. 114.  Though it be a sufficient answer to their objection, to

shew that it involves them in the same difficulties that it doth those

they use it against; yet I shall endeavour to discover the weakness of

this argument a little farther.  All men, say they, are born under

government, and therefore they cannot be at liberty to begin a new one.

Every one is born a subject to his father, or his prince, and is

therefore under the perpetual tie of subjection and allegiance.  It is

plain mankind never owned nor considered any such natural subjection that

they were born in, to one or to the other that tied them, without their

own consents, to a subjection to them and their heirs.

        Sec. 115.  For there are no examples so frequent in history, both

sacred and profane, as those of men withdrawing themselves, and their

obedience, from the jurisdiction they were born under, and the family or

community they were bred up in, and setting up new governments in other

places; from whence sprang all that number of petty commonwealths in the

beginning of ages, and which always multiplied, as long as there was room

enough, till the stronger, or more fortunate, swallowed the weaker; and

those great ones again breaking to pieces, dissolved into lesser

dominions.  All which are so many testimonies against paternal

sovereignty, and plainly prove, that it was not the natural right of the

father descending to his heirs, that made governments in the beginning,

since it was impossible, upon that ground, there should have been so many

little kingdoms; all must have been but only one universal monarchy, if

men had not been at liberty to separate themselves from their families,

and the government, be it what it will, that was set up in it, and go and

make distinct commonwealths and other governments, as they thought fit.

        Sec. 116.  This has been the practice of the world from its first

beginning to this day; nor is it now any more hindrance to the freedom of

mankind, that they are born under constituted and ancient polities, that

have established laws, and set forms of government, than if they were

born in the woods, amongst the unconfined inhabitants, that run loose in

them: for those, who would persuade us, that by being born under any

government, we are naturally subjects to it, and have no more any title

or pretence to the freedom of the state of nature, have no other reason

(bating that of paternal power, which we have already answered) to

produce for it, but only, because our fathers or progenitors passed away

their natural liberty, and thereby bound up themselves and their

posterity to a perpetual subjection to the government, which they

themselves submitted to.  It is true, that whatever engagements or

promises any one has made for himself, he is under the obligation of

them, but cannot, by any compact whatsoever, bind his children or

posterity: for his son, when a man, being altogether as free as the

father, any act of the father can no more give away the liberty of the

son, than it can of any body else: he may indeed annex such conditions to

the land, he enjoyed as a subject of any common-wealth, as may oblige his

son to be of that community, if he will enjoy those possessions which

were his father's; because that estate being his father's property, he

may dispose, or settle it, as he pleases.

        Sec. 117.  And this has generally given the occasion to mistake in

this matter; because commonwealths not permitting any part of their

dominions to be dismembered, nor to be enjoyed by any but those of their

community, the son cannot ordinarily enjoy the possessions of his father,

but under the same terms his father did, by becoming a member of the

society; whereby he puts himself presently under the government he finds

there established, as much as any other subject of that common-wealth.

And thus the consent of freemen, born under government, which only makes

them members of it, being given separately in their turns, as each comes

to be of age, and not in a multitude together; people take no notice of

it, and thinking it not done at all, or not necessary, conclude they are

naturally subjects as they are men.

        Sec. 118.  But, it is plain, governments themselves understand it

otherwise; they claim no power over the son, because of that they had

over the father; nor look on children as being their subjects, by their

fathers being so.  If a subject of England have a child, by an English

woman in France, whose subject is he? Not the king of England's; for he

must have leave to be admitted to the privileges of it: nor the king of

France's; for how then has his father a liberty to bring him away, and

breed him as he pleases? and who ever was judged as a traytor or

deserter, if he left, or warred against a country, for being barely born

in it of parents that were aliens there? It is plain then, by the

practice of governments themselves, as well as by the law of right

reason, that a child is born a subject of no country or government.  He

is under his father's tuition and authority, till he comes to age of

discretion; and then he is a freeman, at liberty what government he will

put himself under, what body politic he will unite himself to: for if an

Englishman's son, born in France, be at liberty, and may do so, it is

evident there is no tie upon him by his father's being a subject of this

kingdom; nor is he bound up by any compact of his ancestors.  And why

then hath not his son, by the same reason, the same liberty, though he be

born any where else? Since the power that a father hath naturally over

his children, is the same, where-ever they be born, and the ties of

natural obligations, are not bounded by the positive limits of kingdoms

and commonwealths.

        Sec. 119.  Every man being, as has been shewed, naturally free, and

nothing being able to put him into subjection to any earthly power, but

only his own consent; it is to be considered, what shall be understood to

be a sufficient declaration of a man's consent, to make him subject to

the laws of any government.  There is a common distinction of an express

and a tacit consent, which will concern our present case.  No body doubts

but an express consent, of any man entering into any society, makes him a

perfect member of that society, a subject of that government.  The

difficulty is, what ought to be looked upon as a tacit consent, and how

far it binds, i.e.  how far any one shall be looked on to have consented,

and thereby submitted to any government, where he has made no expressions

of it at all.  And to this I say, that every man, that hath any

possessions, or enjoyment, of any part of the dominions of any

government, cloth thereby give his tacit consent, and is as far forth

obliged to obedience to the laws of that government, during such

enjoyment, as any one under it; whether this his possession be of land,

to him and his heirs for ever, or a lodging only for a week; or whether

it be barely travelling freely on the highway; and in effect, it reaches

as far as the very being of any one within the territories of that

government.

        Sec. 120.  To understand this the better, it is fit to consider, that

every man, when he at first incorporates himself into any commonwealth,

he, by his uniting himself thereunto, annexed also, and submits to the

community, those possessions, which he has, or shall acquire, that do not

already belong to any other government: for it would be a direct

contradiction, for any one to enter into society with others for the

securing and regulating of property; and yet to suppose his land, whose

property is to be regulated by the laws of the society, should be exempt

from the jurisdiction of that government, to which he himself, the

proprietor of the land, is a subject.  By the same act therefore, whereby

any one unites his person, which was before free, to any common-wealth,

by the same he unites his possessions, which were before free, to it

also; and they become, both of them, person and possession, subject to

the government and dominion of that common-wealth, as long as it hath a

being.  Whoever therefore, from thenceforth, by inheritance, purchase,

permission, or otherways, enjoys any part of the land, so annexed to, and

under the government of that common-wealth, must take it with the

condition it is under; that is, of submitting to the government of the

common-wealth, under whose jurisdiction it is, as far forth as any

subject of it.

        Sec. 121.  But since the government has a direct jurisdiction only

over the land, and reaches the possessor of it, (before he has actually

incorporated himself in the society) only as he dwells upon, and enjoys

that; the obligation any one is under, by virtue of such enjoyment, to

submit to the government, begins and ends with the enjoyment; so that

whenever the owner, who has given nothing but such a tacit consent to the

government, will, by donation, sale, or otherwise, quit the said

possession, he is at liberty to go and incorporate himself into any other

common-wealth; or to agree with others to begin a new one, in vacuis

locis, in any part of the world, they can find free and unpossessed:

whereas he, that has once, by actual agreement, and any express

declaration, given his consent to be of any common-wealth, is perpetually

and indispensably obliged to be, and remain unalterably a subject to it,

and can never be again in the liberty of the state of nature; unless, by

any calamity, the government he was under comes to be dissolved; or else

by some public act cuts him off from being any longer a member of it.

        Sec. 122.  But submitting to the laws of any country, living quietly,

and enjoying privileges and protection under them, makes not a man a

member of that society: this is only a local protection and homage due to

and from all those, who, not being in a state of war, come within the

territories belonging to any government, to all parts whereof the force

of its laws extends.  But this no more makes a man a member of that

society, a perpetual subject of that common-wealth, than it would make a

man a subject to another, in whose family he found it convenient to abide

for some time; though, whilst he continued in it, he were obliged to

comply with the laws, and submit to the government he found there.  And

thus we see, that foreigners, by living all their lives under another

government, and enjoying the privileges and protection of it, though they

are bound, even in conscience, to submit to its administration, as far

forth as any denison; yet do not thereby come to be subjects or members

of that common-wealth.  Nothing can make any man so, but his actually

entering into it by positive engagement, and express promise and

compact.  This is that, which I think, concerning the beginning of

political societies, and that consent which makes any one a member of any

common-wealth.

 

 

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CHAP.  IX.

 

            Of the Ends of Political Society and Government.

 

  Sec. 123.  IF man in the state of nature be so free, as has been said;

if he be absolute lord of his own person and possessions, equal to the

greatest, and subject to no body, why will he part with his freedom? why

will he give up this empire, and subject himself to the dominion and

controul of any other power? To which it is obvious to answer, that

though in the state of nature he hath such a right, yet the enjoyment of

it is very uncertain, and constantly exposed to the invasion of others:

for all being kings as much as he, every man his equal, and the greater

part no strict observers of equity and justice, the enjoyment of the

property he has in this state is very unsafe, very unsecure.  This makes

him willing to quit a condition, which, however free, is full of fears

and continual dangers: and it is not without reason, that he seeks out,

and is willing to join in society with others, who are already united, or

have a mind to unite, for the mutual preservation of their lives,

liberties and estates, which I call by the general name, property.

        Sec. 124.  The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into

commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the

preservation of their property.  To which in the state of nature there

are many things wanting.

          First, There wants an established, settled, known law, received and

allowed by common consent to be the standard of right and wrong, and the

common measure to decide all controversies between them: for though the

law of nature be plain and intelligible to all rational creatures; yet

men being biassed by their interest, as well as ignorant for want of

study of it, are not apt to allow of it as a law binding to them in the

application of it to their particular cases.

        Sec. 125.  Secondly, In the state of nature there wants a known and

indifferent judge, with authority to determine all differences according

to the established law: for every one in that state being both judge and

executioner of the law of nature, men being partial to themselves,

passion and revenge is very apt to carry them too far, and with too much

heat, in their own cases; as well as negligence, and unconcernedness, to

make them too remiss in other men's.

        Sec. 126.  Thirdly, In the state of nature there often wants power to

back and support the sentence when right, and to give it due execution,

They who by any injustice offended, will seldom fail, where they are

able, by force to make good their injustice; such resistance many times

makes the punishment dangerous, and frequently destructive, to those who

attempt it.

        Sec. 127.  Thus mankind, notwithstanding all the privileges of the

state of nature, being but in an ill condition, while they remain in it,

are quickly driven into society.  Hence it comes to pass, that we seldom

find any number of men live any time together in this state.  The

inconveniencies that they are therein exposed to, by the irregular and

uncertain exercise of the power every man has of punishing the

transgressions of others, make them take sanctuary under the established

laws of government, and therein seek the preservation of their property.

It is this makes them so willingly give up every one his single power of

punishing, to be exercised by such alone, as shall be appointed to it

amongst them; and by such rules as the community, or those authorized by

them to that purpose, shall agree on.  And in this we have the original

right and rise of both the legislative and executive power, as well as of

the governments and societies themselves.

        Sec. 128.  For in the state of nature, to omit the liberty he has of

innocent delights, a man has two powers.

        The first is to do whatsoever he thinks fit for the preservation of

himself, and others within the permission of the law of nature: by which

law, common to them all, he and all the rest of mankind are one

community, make up one society, distinct from all other creatures.  And

were it not for the corruption and vitiousness of degenerate men, there

would be no need of any other; no necessity that men should separate from

this great and natural community, and by positive agreements combine into

smaller and divided associations.

        The other power a man has in the state of nature, is the power to

punish the crimes committed against that law.  Both these he gives up,

when he joins in a private, if I may so call it, or particular politic

society, and incorporates into any common-wealth, separate from the rest

of mankind.

        Sec. 129.  The first power, viz. of doing whatsoever he thought for

the preservation of himself, and the rest of mankind, he gives up to be

regulated by laws made by the society, so far forth as the preservation

of himself, and the rest of that society shall require; which laws of the

society in many things confine the liberty he had by the law of nature.

        Sec. 130.  Secondly, The power of punishing he wholly gives up, and

engages his natural force, (which he might before employ in the execution

of the law of nature, by his own single authority, as he thought fit) to

assist the executive power of the society, as the law thereof shall

require: for being now in a new state, wherein he is to enjoy many

conveniencies, from the labour, assistance, and society of others in the

same community, as well as protection from its whole strength; he is to

part also with as much of his natural liberty, in providing for himself,

as the good, prosperity, and safety of the society shall require; which

is not only necessary, but just, since the other members of the society

do the like.

        Sec. 131.  But though men, when they enter into society, give up the

equality, liberty, and executive power they had in the state of nature,

into the hands of the society, to be so far disposed of by the

legislative, as the good of the society shall require; yet it being only

with an intention in every one the better to preserve himself, his

liberty and property; (for no rational creature can be supposed to change

his condition with an intention to be worse) the power of the society, or

legislative constituted by them, can never be supposed to extend farther,

than the common good; but is obliged to secure every one's property, by

providing against those three defects above mentioned, that made the

state of nature so unsafe and uneasy.  And so whoever has the legislative

or supreme power of any common-wealth, is bound to govern by established

standing laws, promulgated and known to the people, and not by

extemporary decrees; by indifferent and upright judges, who are to decide

controversies by those laws; and to employ the force of the community at

home, only in the execution of such laws, or abroad to prevent or redress

foreign injuries, and secure the community from inroads and invasion.

And all this to be directed to no other end, but the peace, safety, and

public good of the people.

 

 

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CHAP.  X.

 

                Of the Forms of a Common-wealth.

 

  Sec. 132.  THE majority having, as has been shewed, upon men's first

uniting into society, the whole power of the community naturally in them,

may employ all that power in making laws for the community from time to

time, and executing those laws by officers of their own appointing; and

then the form of the government is a perfect democracy: or else may put

the power of making laws into the hands of a few select men, and their

heirs or successors; and then it is an oligarchy: or else into the hands

of one man, and then it is a monarchy: if to him and his heirs, it is an

hereditary monarchy: if to him only for life, but upon his death the

power only of nominating a successor to return to them; an elective

monarchy.  And so accordingly of these the community may make compounded

and mixed forms of government, as they think good.  And if the

legislative power be at first given by the majority to one or more

persons only for their lives, or any limited time, and then the supreme

power to revert to them again; when it is so reverted, the community may

dispose of it again anew into what hands they please, and so constitute a

new form of government: for the form of government depending upon the

placing the supreme power, which is the legislative, it being impossible

to conceive that an inferior power should prescribe to a superior, or any

but the supreme make laws, according as the power of making laws is

placed, such is the form of the common-wealth.

        Sec. 133.  By common-wealth, I must be understood all along to mean,

not a democracy, or any form of government, but any independent

community, which the Latines signified by the word civitas, to which the

word which best answers in our language, is common-wealth, and most

properly expresses such a society of men, which community or city in

English does not; for there may be subordinate communities in a

government; and city amongst us has a quite different notion from

common-wealth: and therefore, to avoid ambiguity, I crave leave to use

the word common-wealth in that sense, in which I find it used by king

James the first; and I take it to be its genuine signification; which if

any body dislike, I consent with him to change it for a better.

 

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CHAP.  XI.

 

            Of the Extent of the Legislative Power.

 

        Sec. 134.  THE great end of men's entering into society, being the

enjoyment of their properties in peace and safety, and the great

instrument and means of that being the laws established in that society;

the first and fundamental positive law of all commonwealths is the

establishing of the legislative power; as the first and fundamental

natural law, which is to govern even the legislative itself, is the

preservation of the society, and (as far as will consist with the public

good) of every person in it.  This legislative is not only the supreme

power of the common-wealth, but sacred and unalterable in the hands where

the community have once placed it; nor can any edict of any body else, in

what form soever conceived, or by what power soever backed, have the

force and obligation of a law, which has not its sanction from that

legislative which the public has chosen and appointed: for without this

the law could not have that, which is absolutely necessary to its being a

law, * the consent of the society, over whom no body can have a power to

make laws, but by their own consent, and by authority received from them;

and therefore all the obedience, which by the most solemn ties any one

can be obliged to pay, ultimately terminates in this supreme power, and

is directed by those laws which it enacts: nor can any oaths to any

foreign power whatsoever, or any domestic subordinate power, discharge

any member of the society from his obedience to the legislative, acting

pursuant to their trust; nor oblige him to any obedience contrary to the

laws so enacted, or farther than they do allow; it being ridiculous to

imagine one can be tied ultimately to obey any power in the society,

which is not the supreme.

        (*The lawful power of making laws to command whole politic societies

of men, belonging so properly unto the same intire societies, that for

any prince or potentate of what kind soever upon earth, to exercise the

same of himself, and not by express commission immediately and personally

received from God, or else by authority derived at the first from their

consent, upon whose persons they impose laws, it is no better than mere

tyranny.  Laws they are not therefore which public approbation hath not

made so.  Hooker's Eccl. Pol. l. i. sect. 10.  Of this point therefore we

are to note, that sith men naturally have no full and perfect power to

command whole politic multitudes of men, therefore utterly without our

consent, we could in such sort be at no man's commandment living.  And to

be commanded we do consent, when that society, whereof we be a part, hath

at any time before consented, without revoking the same after by the like

universal agreement.

        Laws therefore human, of what kind so ever, are available by consent.

Ibid.)

        Sec. 135.  Though the legislative, whether placed in one or more,

whether it be always in being, or only by intervals, though it be the

supreme power in every common-wealth; yet,

  First, It is not, nor can possibly be absolutely arbitrary over the

lives and fortunes of the people: for it being but the joint power of

every member of the society given up to that person, or assembly, which

is legislator; it can be no more than those persons had in a state of

nature before they entered into society, and gave up to the community:

for no body can transfer to another more power than he has in himself;

and no body has an absolute arbitrary power over himself, or over any

other, to destroy his own life, or take away the life or property of

another.  A man, as has been proved, cannot subject himself to the

arbitrary power of another; and having in the state of nature no

arbitrary power over the life, liberty, or possession of another, but

only so much as the law of nature gave him for the preservation of

himself, and the rest of mankind; this is all he cloth, or can give up to

the common-wealth, and by it to the legislative power, so that the

legislative can have no more than this.  Their power, in the utmost

bounds of it, is limited to the public good of the society.  It is a

power, that hath no other end but preservation, and therefore can never*

have a right to destroy, enslave, or designedly to impoverish the

subjects.  The obligations of the law of nature cease not in society, but

only in many cases are drawn closer, and have by human laws known

penalties annexed to them, to inforce their observation.  Thus the law of

nature stands as an eternal rule to all men, legislators as well as

others.  The rules that they make for other men's actions, must, as well

as their own and other men's actions, be conformable to the law of

nature, i.e.  to the will of God, of which that is a declaration, and the

fundamental law of nature being the preservation of mankind, no human

sanction can be good, or valid against it.

        (*Two foundations there are which bear up public societies; the one a

natural inclination, whereby all men desire sociable life and fellowship;

the other an order, expresly or secretly agreed upon, touching the manner

of their union in living together: the latter is that which we call the

law of a common-weal, the very soul of a politic body, the parts whereof

are by law animated, held together, and set on work in such actions as

the common good requireth.  Laws politic, ordained for external order and

regiment amongst men, are never framed as they should be, unless

presuming the will of man to be inwardly obstinate, rebellious, and

averse from all obedience to the sacred laws of his nature; in a word,

unless presuming man to be, in regard of his depraved mind, little better

than a wild beast, they do accordingly provide, notwithstanding, so to

frame his outward actions, that they be no hindrance unto the common

good, for which societies are instituted.  Unless they do this, they are

not perfect.  Hooker's Eccl. Pol. l. i. sect. 10.)

        Sec. 136.  Secondly,* The legislative, or supreme authority, cannot

assume to its self a power to rule by extemporary arbitrary decrees, but

is bound to dispense justice, and decide the rights of the subject by

promulgated standing laws, and known authorized judges: for the law of

nature being unwritten, and so no where to be found but in the minds of

men, they who through passion or interest shall miscite, or misapply it,

cannot so easily be convinced of their mistake where there is no

established judge: and so it serves not, as it ought, to determine the

rights, and fence the properties of those that live under it, especially

where every one is judge, interpreter, and executioner of it too, and

that in his own case: and he that has right on his side, having

ordinarily but his own single strength, hath not force enough to defend

himself from injuries, or to punish delinquents.  To avoid these

inconveniences, which disorder men's propperties in the state of nature,

men unite into societies, that they may have the united strength of the

whole society to secure and defend their properties, and may have

standing rules to bound it, by which every one may know what is his.  To

this end it is that men give up all their natural power to the society

which they enter into, and the community put the legislative power into

such hands as they think fit, with this trust, that they shall be

governed by declared laws, or else their peace, quiet, and property will

still be at the same uncertainty, as it was in the state of nature.

        (*Human laws are measures in respect of men whose actions they must

direct, howbeit such measures they are as have also their higher rules to

be measured by, which rules are two, the law of God, and the law of

nature; so that laws human must be made according to the general laws of

nature, and without contradiction to any positive law of scripture,

otherwise they are ill made.  Hooker's Eccl. Pol. l. iii. sect. 9.

        To constrain men to any thing inconvenient cloth seem unreasonable.

Ibid. l. i. sect. 10.)

        Sec. 137.  Absolute arbitrary power, or governing without settled

standing laws, can neither of them consist with the ends of society and

government, which men would not quit the freedom of the state of nature

for, and tie themselves up under, were it not to preserve their lives,

liberties and fortunes, and by stated rules of right and property to

secure their peace and quiet.  It cannot be supposed that they should

intend, had they a power so to do, to give to any one, or more, an

absolute arbitrary power over their persons and estates, and put a force

into the magistrate's hand to execute his unlimited will arbitrarily upon

them.  This were to put themselves into a worse condition than the state

of nature, wherein they had a liberty to defend their right against the

injuries of others, and were upon equal terms of force to maintain it,

whether invaded by a single man, or many in combination.  Whereas by

supposing they have given up themselves to the absolute arbitrary power

and will of a legislator, they have disarmed themselves, and armed him,

to make a prey of them when he pleases; he being in a much worse

condition, who is exposed to the arbitrary power of one man, who has the

command of 100,000, than he that is exposed to the arbitrary power of

100,000 single men; no body being secure, that his will, who has such a

command, is better than that of other men, though his force be 100,000

times stronger.  And therefore, whatever form the common-wealth is under,

the ruling power ought to govern by declared and received laws, and not

by extemporary dictates and undetermined resolutions: for then mankind

will be in a far worse condition than in the state of nature, if they

shall have armed one, or a few men with the joint power of a multitude,

to force them to obey at pleasure the exorbitant and unlimited decrees of

their sudden thoughts, or unrestrained, and till that moment unknown

wills, without having any measures set down which may guide and justify

their actions: for all the power the government has, being only for the

good of the society, as it ought not to be arbitrary and at pleasure, so

it ought to be exercised by established and promulgated laws; that both

the people may know their duty, and be safe and secure within the limits

of the law; and the rulers too kept within their bounds, and not be

tempted, by the power they have in their hands, to employ it to such

purposes, and by such measures, as they would not have known, and own not

willingly.

        Sec. 138.  Thirdly, The supreme power cannot take from any man any

part of his property without his own consent: for the preservation of

property being the end of government, and that for which men enter into

society, it necessarily supposes and requires, that the people should

have property, without which they must be supposed to lose that, by

entering into society, which was the end for which they entered into it;

too gross an absurdity for any man to own.  Men therefore in society

having property, they have such a right to the goods, which by the law of

the community are their's, that no body hath a right to take their

substance or any part of it from them, without their own consent: without

this they have no property at all; for I have truly no property in that,

which another can by right take from me, when he pleases, against my

consent.  Hence it is a mistake to think, that the supreme or legislative

power of any common-wealth, can do what it will, and dispose of the

estates of the subject arbitrarily, or take any part of them at

pleasure.  This is not much to be feared in governments where the

legislative consists, wholly or in part, in assemblies which are

variable, whose members, upon the dissolution of the assembly, are

subjects under the common laws of their country, equally with the rest.

But in governments, where the legislative is in one lasting assembly

always in being, or in one man, as in absolute monarchies, there is

danger still, that they will think themselves to have a distinct interest

from the rest of the community; and so will be apt to increase their own

riches and power, by taking what they think fit from the people: for a

man's property is not at all secure, tho' there be good and equitable

laws to set the bounds of it between him and his fellow subjects, if he

who commands those subjects have power to take from any private man, what

part he pleases of his property, and use and dispose of it as he thinks

good.

        Sec. 139.  But government, into whatsoever hands it is put, being, as

I have before shewed, intrusted with this condition, and for this end,

that men might have and secure their properties; the prince, or senate,

however it may have power to make laws, for the regulating of property

between the subjects one amongst another, yet can never have a power to

take to themselves the whole, or any part of the subjects property,

without their own consent: for this would be in effect to leave them no

property at all.  And to let us see, that even absolute power, where it

is necessary, is not arbitrary by being absolute, but is still limited by

that reason, and confined to those ends, which required it in some cases

to be absolute, we need look no farther than the common practice of

martial discipline: for the preservation of the army, and in it of the

whole common-wealth, requires an absolute obedience to the command of

every superior officer, and it is justly death to disobey or dispute the

most dangerous or unreasonable of them; but yet we see, that neither the

serjeant, that could command a soldier to march up to the mouth of a

cannon, or stand in a breach, where he is almost sure to perish, can

command that soldier to give him one penny of his money; nor the general,

that can condemn him to death for deserting his post, or for not obeying

the most desperate orders, can yet, with all his absolute power of life

and death, dispose of one farthing of that soldier's estate, or seize one

jot of his goods; whom yet he can command any thing, and hang for the

least disobedience; because such a blind obedience is necessary to that

end, for which the commander has his power, viz.  the preservation of the

rest; but the disposing of his goods has nothing to do with it.

        Sec. 140.  It is true, governments cannot be supported without great

charge, and it is fit every one who enjoys his share of the protection,

should pay out of his estate his proportion for the maintenance of it.

But still it must be with his own consent, i.e.  the consent of the

majority, giving it either by themselves, or their representatives chosen

by them: for if any one shall claim a power to lay and levy taxes on the

people, by his own authority, and without such consent of the people, he

thereby invades the fundamental law of property, and subverts the end of

government: for what property have I in that, which another may by right

take, when he pleases, to himself?

        Sec. 141.  Fourthly, The legislative cannot transfer the power of

making laws to any other hands: for it being but a delegated power from

the people, they who have it cannot pass it over to others.  The people

alone can appoint the form of the common-wealth, which is by constituting

the legislative, and appointing in whose hands that shall be.  And when

the people have said, We will submit to rules, and be governed by laws

made by such men, and in such forms, no body else can say other men shall

make laws for them; nor can the people be bound by any laws, but such as

are enacted by those whom they have chosen, and authorized to make laws

for them.  The power of the legislative, being derived from the people by

a positive voluntary grant and institution, can be no other than what

that positive grant conveyed, which being only to make laws, and not to

make legislators, the legislative can have no power to transfer their

authority of making laws, and place it in other hands.

        Sec. 142.  These are the bounds which the trust, that is put in them

by the society, and the law of God and nature, have set to the

legislative power of every common-wealth, in all forms of government.

  First, They are to govern by promulgated established laws, not to be

varied in particular cases, but to have one rule for rich and poor, for

the favourite at court, and the country man at plough.

        Secondly, These laws also ought to be designed for no other end

ultimately, but the good of the people.

  Thirdly, They must not raise taxes on the property of the people,

without the consent of the people, given by themselves, or their

deputies.  And this properly concerns only such governments where the

legislative is always in being, or at least where the people have not

reserved any part of the legislative to deputies, to be from time to time

chosen by themselves.

  Fourthly, The legislative neither must nor can transfer the power of

making laws to any body else, or place it any where, but where the people

have.

 

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CHAP.  XII.

 

          Of the Legislative, Executive, and Federative

                  Power of the Common-wealth.

 

        Sec. 143.  THE legislative power is that, which has a right to direct

how the force of the common-wealth shall be employed for preserving the

community and the members of it.  But because those laws which are

constantly to be executed, and whose force is always to continue, may be

made in a little time; therefore there is no need, that the legislative

should be always in being, not having always business to do.  And because

it may be too great a temptation to human frailty, apt to grasp at power,

for the same persons, who have the power of making laws, to have also in

their hands the power to execute them, whereby they may exempt themselves

from obedience to the laws they make, and suit the law, both in its

making, and execution, to their own private advantage, and thereby come

to have a distinct interest from the rest of the community, contrary to

the end of society and government: therefore in wellordered

commonwealths, where the good of the whole is so considered, as it ought,

the legislative power is put into the hands of divers persons, who duly

assembled, have by themselves, or jointly with others, a power to make

laws, which when they have done, being separated again, they are

themselves subject to the laws they have made; which is a new and near

tie upon them, to take care, that they make them for the public good.

        Sec. 144.  But because the laws, that are at once, and in a short time

made, have a constant and lasting force, and need a perpetual execution,

or an attendance thereunto; therefore it is necessary there should be a

power always in being, which should see to the execution of the laws that

are made, and remain in force.  And thus the legislative and executive

power come often to be separated.

        Sec. 145.  There is another power in every common-wealth, which one

may call natural, because it is that which answers to the power every man

naturally had before he entered into society: for though in a

common-wealth the members of it are distinct persons still in reference

to one another, and as such as governed by the laws of the society; yet

in reference to the rest of mankind, they make one body, which is, as

every member of it before was, still in the state of nature with the rest

of mankind.  Hence it is, that the controversies that happen between any

man of the society with those that are out of it, are managed by the

public; and an injury done to a member of their body, engages the whole

in the reparation of it.  So that under this consideration, the whole

community is one body in the state of nature, in respect of all other

states or persons out of its community.

        Sec. 146.  This therefore contains the power of war and peace, leagues

and alliances, and all the transactions, with all persons and communities

without the common-wealth, and may be called federative, if any one

pleases.  So the thing be understood, I am indifferent as to the name.

        Sec. 147.  These two powers, executive and federative, though they be

really distinct in themselves, yet one comprehending the execution of the

municipal laws of the society within its self, upon all that are parts of

it; the other the management of the security and interest of the public

without, with all those that it may receive benefit or damage from, yet

they are always almost united.  And though this federative power in the

well or ill management of it be of great moment to the common-wealth, yet

it is much less capable to be directed by antecedent, standing, positive

laws, than the executive; and so must necessarily be left to the prudence

and wisdom of those, whose hands it is in, to be managed for the public

good: for the laws that concern subjects one amongst another, being to

direct their actions, may well enough precede them.  But what is to be

done in reference to foreigners, depending much upon their actions, and

the variation of designs and interests, must be left in great part to the

prudence of those, who have this power committed to them, to be managed

by the best of their skill, for the advantage of the common-wealth.

        Sec. 148.  Though, as I said, the executive and federative power of

every community be really distinct in themselves, yet they are hardly to

be separated, and placed at the same time, in the hands of distinct

persons: for both of them requiring the force of the society for their

exercise, it is almost impracticable to place the force of the

common-wealth in distinct, and not subordinate hands; or that the

executive and federative power should be placed in persons, that might

act separately, whereby the force of the public would be under different

commands: which would be apt some time or other to cause disorder and

ruin.

 

 

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C H A P.  XIII.

 

            Of the Subordination of the Powers of the

                        Common-wealth.

 

        Sec. 149.  THOUGH in a constituted common-wealth, standing upon its

own basis, and acting according to its own nature, that is, acting for

the preservation of the community, there can be but one supreme power,

which is the legislative, to which all the rest are and must be

subordinate, yet the legislative being only a fiduciary power to act for

certain ends, there remains still in the people a supreme power to remove

or alter the legislative, when they find the legislative act contrary to

the trust reposed in them: for all power given with trust for the

attaining an end, being limited by that end, whenever that end is

manifestly neglected, or opposed, the trust must necessarily be

forfeited, and the power devolve into the hands of those that gave it,

who may place it anew where they shall think best for their safety and

security.  And thus the community perpetually retains a supreme power of

saving themselves from the attempts and designs of any body, even of

their legislators, whenever they shall be so foolish, or so wicked, as to

lay and carry on designs against the liberties and properties of the

subject: for no man or society of men, having a power to deliver up their

preservation, or consequently the means of it, to the absolute will and

arbitrary dominion of another; when ever any one shall go about to bring

them into such a slavish condition, they will always have a right to

preserve, what they have not a power to part with; and to rid themselves

of those, who invade this fundamental, sacred, and unalterable law of

self-preservation, for which they entered into society.  And thus the

community may be said in this respect to be always the supreme power, but

not as considered under any form of government, because this power of the

people can never take place till the government be dissolved.

        Sec. 150.  In all cases, whilst the government subsists, the

legislative is the supreme power: for what can give laws to another, must

needs be superior to him; and since the legislative is no otherwise

legislative of the society, but by the right it has to make laws for all

the parts, and for every member of the society, prescribing rules to

their actions, and giving power of execution, where they are

transgressed, the legislative must needs be the supreme, and all other

powers, in any members or parts of the society, derived from and

subordinate to it.

        Sec. 151.  In some commonwealths, where the legislative is not always

in being, and the executive is vested in a single person, who has also a

share in the legislative; there that single person in a very tolerable

sense may also be called supreme: not that he has in himself all the

supreme power, which is that of law-making; but because he has in him the

supreme execution, from whom all inferior magistrates derive all their

several subordinate powers, or at least the greatest part of them: having

also no legislative superior to him, there being no law to be made

without his consent, which cannot be expected should ever subject him to

the other part of the legislative, he is properly enough in this sense

supreme.  But yet it is to be observed, that tho' oaths of allegiance and

fealty are taken to him, it is not to him as supreme legislator, but as

supreme executor of the law, made by a joint power of him with others;

allegiance being nothing but an obedience according to law, which when he

violates, he has no right to obedience, nor can claim it otherwise than

as the public person vested with the power of the law, and so is to be

considered as the image, phantom, or representative of the common-wealth,

acted by the will of the society, declared in its laws; and thus he has

no will, no power, but that of the law.  But when he quits this

representation, this public will, and acts by his own private will, he

degrades himself, and is but a single private person without power, and

without will, that has any right to obedience; the members owing no

obedience but to the public will of the society.

        Sec. 152.  The executive power, placed any where but in a person that

has also a share in the legislative, is visibly subordinate and

accountable to it, and may be at pleasure changed and displaced; so that

it is not the supreme executive power, that is exempt from subordination,

but the supreme executive power vested in one, who having a share in the

legislative, has no distinct superior legislative to be subordinate and

accountable to, farther than he himself shall join and consent; so that

he is no more subordinate than he himself shall think fit, which one may

certainly conclude will be but very little.  Of other ministerial and

subordinate powers in a commonwealth, we need not speak, they being so

multiplied with infinite variety, in the different customs and

constitutions of distinct commonwealths, that it is impossible to give a

particular account of them all.  Only thus much, which is necessary to

our present purpose, we may take notice of concerning them, that they

have no manner of authority, any of them, beyond what is by positive

grant and commission delegated to them, and are all of them accountable

to some other power in the common-wealth.

        Sec. 153.  It is not necessary, no, nor so much as convenient, that

the legislative should be always in being; but absolutely necessary that

the executive power should, because there is not always need of new laws

to be made, but always need of execution of the laws that are made.  When

the legislative hath put the execution of the laws, they make, into other

hands, they have a power still to resume it out of those hands, when they

find cause, and to punish for any maladministration against the laws.

The same holds also in regard of the federative power, that and the

executive being both ministerial and subordinate to the legislative,

which, as has been shewed, in a constituted common-wealth is the

supreme.  The legislative also in this case being supposed to consist of

several persons, (for if it be a single person, it cannot but be always

in being, and so will, as supreme, naturally have the supreme executive

power, together with the legislative) may assemble, and exercise their

legislature, at the times that either their original constitution, or

their own adjournment, appoints, or when they please; if neither of these

hath appointed any time, or there be no other way prescribed to convoke

them: for the supreme power being placed in them by the people, it is

always in them, and they may exercise it when they please, unless by

their original constitution they are limited to certain seasons, or by an

act of their supreme power they have adjourned to a certain time; and

when that time comes, they have a right to assemble and act again.

        Sec. 154.  If the legislative, or any part of it, be made up of

representatives chosen for that time by the people, which afterwards

return into the ordinary state of subjects, and have no share in the

legislature but upon a new choice, this power of chusing must also be

exercised by the people, either at certain appointed seasons, or else

when they are summoned to it; and in this latter case the power of

convoking the legislative is ordinarily placed in the executive, and has

one of these two limitations in respect of time: that either the original

constitution requires their assembling and acting at certain intervals,

and then the executive power does nothing but ministerially issue

directions for their electing and assembling, according to due forms; or

else it is left to his prudence to call them by new elections, when the

occasions or exigencies of the public require the amendment of old, or

making of new laws, or the redress or prevention of any inconveniencies,

that lie on, or threaten the people.

        Sec. 155.  It may be demanded here, What if the executive power, being

possessed of the force of the common-wealth, shall make use of that force

to hinder the meeting and acting of the legislative, when the original

constitution, or the public exigencies require it? I say, using force

upon the people without authority, and contrary to the trust put in him

that does so, is a state of war with the people, who have a right to

reinstate their legislative in the exercise of their power: for having

erected a legislative, with an intent they should exercise the power of

making laws, either at certain set times, or when there is need of it,

when they are hindered by any force from what is so necessary to the

society, and wherein the safety and preservation of the people consists,

the people have a right to remove it by force.  In all states and

conditions, the true remedy of force without authority, is to oppose

force to it.  The use of force without authority, always puts him that

uses it into a state of war, as the aggressor, and renders him liable to

be treated accordingly.

        Sec. 156.  The power of assembling and dismissing the legislative,

placed in the executive, gives not the executive a superiority over it,

but is a fiduciary trust placed in him, for the safety of the people, in

a case where the uncertainty and variableness of human affairs could not

bear a steady fixed rule: for it not being possible, that the first

framers of the government should, by any foresight, be so much masters of

future events, as to be able to prefix so just periods of return and

duration to the assemblies of the legislative, in all times to come, that

might exactly answer all the exigencies of the common-wealth; the best

remedy could be found for this defect, was to trust this to the prudence

of one who was always to be present, and whose business it was to watch

over the public good.  Constant frequent meetings of the legislative, and

long continuations of their assemblies, without necessary occasion, could

not but be burdensome to the people, and must necessarily in time produce

more dangerous inconveniencies, and yet the quick turn of affairs might

be sometimes such as to need their present help: any delay of their

convening might endanger the public; and sometimes too their business

might be so great, that the limited time of their sitting might be too

short for their work, and rob the public of that benefit which could be

had only from their mature deliberation.  What then could be done in this

case to prevent the community from being exposed some time or other to

eminent hazard, on one side or the other, by fixed intervals and periods,

set to the meeting and acting of the legislative, but to intrust it to

the prudence of some, who being present, and acquainted with the state of

public affairs, might make use of this prerogative for the public good?

and where else could this be so well placed as in his hands, who was

intrusted with the execution of the laws for the same end? Thus supposing

the regulation of times for the assembling and sitting of the

legislative, not settled by the original constitution, it naturally fell

into the hands of the executive, not as an arbitrary power depending on

his good pleasure, but with this trust always to have it exercised only

for the public weal, as the occurrences of times and change of affairs

might require.  Whether settled periods of their convening, or a liberty

left to the prince for convoking the legislative, or perhaps a mixture of

both, hath the least inconvenience attending it, it is not my business

here to inquire, but only to shew, that though the executive power may

have the prerogative of convoking and dissolving such conventions of the

legislative, yet it is not thereby superior to it.

        Sec. 157.  Things of this world are in so constant a flux, that

nothing remains long in the same state.  Thus people, riches, trade,

power, change their stations, flourishing mighty cities come to ruin, and

prove in times neglected desolate corners, whilst other unfrequented

places grow into populous countries, filled with wealth and inhabitants.

But things not always changing equally, and private interest often

keeping up customs and privileges, when the reasons of them are ceased,

it often comes to pass, that in governments, where part of the

legislative consists of representatives chosen by the people, that in

tract of time this representation becomes very unequal and

disproportionate to the reasons it was at first established upon.  To

what gross absurdities the following of custom, when reason has left it,

may lead, we may be satisfied, when we see the bare name of a town, of

which there remains not so much as the ruins, where scarce so much

housing as a sheepcote, or more inhabitants than a shepherd is to be

found, sends as many representatives to the grand assembly of law-makers,

as a whole county numerous in people, and powerful in riches.  This

strangers stand amazed at, and every one must confess needs a remedy;

tho' most think it hard to find one, because the constitution of the

legislative being the original and supreme act of the society, antecedent

to all positive laws in it, and depending wholly on the people, no

inferior power can alter it.  And therefore the people, when the

legislative is once constituted, having, in such a government as we have

been speaking of, no power to act as long as the government stands; this

inconvenience is thought incapable of a remedy.

        Sec. 158.  Salus populi suprema lex, is certainly so just and

fundamental a rule, that he, who sincerely follows it, cannot dangerously

err.  If therefore the executive, who has the power of convoking the

legislative, observing rather the true proportion, than fashion of

representation, regulates, not by old custom, but true reason, the number

of members, in all places that have a right to be distinctly represented,

which no part of the people however incorporated can pretend to, but in

proportion to the assistance which it affords to the public, it cannot be

judged to have set up a new legislative, but to have restored the old and

true one, and to have rectified the disorders which succession of time

had insensibly, as well as inevitably introduced: For it being the

interest as well as intention of the people, to have a fair and equal

representative; whoever brings it nearest to that, is an undoubted friend

to, and establisher of the government, and cannot miss the consent and

approbation of the community; prerogative being nothing but a power, in

the hands of the prince, to provide for the public good, in such cases,

which depending upon unforeseen and uncertain occurrences, certain and

unalterable laws could not safely direct; whatsoever shall be done

manifestly for the good of the people, and the establishing the

government upon its true foundations, is, and always will be, just

prerogative, The power of erecting new corporations, and therewith new

representatives, carries with it a supposition, that in time the measures

of representation might vary, and those places have a just right to be

represented which before had none; and by the same reason, those cease to

have a right, and be too inconsiderable for such a privilege, which

before had it.  'Tis not a change from the present state, which perhaps

corruption or decay has introduced, that makes an inroad upon the

government, but the tendency of it to injure or oppress the people, and

to set up one part or party, with a distinction from, and an unequal

subjection of the rest.  Whatsoever cannot but be acknowledged to be of

advantage to the society, and people in general, upon just and lasting

measures, will always, when done, justify itself; and whenever the people

shall chuse their representatives upon just and undeniably equal

measures, suitable to the original frame of the government, it cannot be

doubted to be the will and act of the society, whoever permitted or

caused them so to do.

 

 

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CHAP.  XIV.

 

                        Of PREROGATIVE.

 

  Sec. 159.  WHERE the legislative and executive power are in distinct

hands, (as they are in all moderated monarchies, and well-framed

governments) there the good of the society requires, that several things

should be left to the discretion of him that has the executive power: for

the legislators not being able to foresee, and provide by laws, for all

that may be useful to the community, the executor of the laws having the

power in his hands, has by the common law of nature a right to make use

of it for the good of the society, in many cases, where the municipal law

has given no direction, till the legislative can conveniently be

assembled to provide for it.  Many things there are, which the law can by

no means provide for; and those must necessarily be left to the

discretion of him that has the executive power in his hands, to be

ordered by him as the public good and advantage shall require: nay, it is

fit that the laws themselves should in some cases give way to the

executive power, or rather to this fundamental law of nature and

government, viz.  That as much as may be, all the members of the society

are to be preserved: for since many accidents may happen, wherein a

strict and rigid observation of the laws may do harm; (as not to pull

down an innocent man's house to stop the fire, when the next to it is

burning) and a man may come sometimes within the reach of the law, which

makes no distinction of persons, by an action that may deserve reward and

pardon; 'tis fit the ruler should have a power, in many cases, to

mitigate the severity of the law, and pardon some offenders: for the end

of government being the preservation of all, as much as may be, even the

guilty are to be spared, where it can prove no prejudice to the innocent.

        Sec. 160.  This power to act according to discretion, for the public

good, without the prescription of the law, and sometimes even against it,

is that which is called prerogative: for since in some governments the

lawmaking power is not always in being, and is usually too numerous, and

so too slow, for the dispatch requisite to execution; and because also it

is impossible to foresee, and so by laws to provide for, all accidents

and necessities that may concern the public, or to make such laws as will

do no harm, if they are executed with an inflexible rigour, on all

occasions, and upon all persons that may come in their way; therefore

there is a latitude left to the executive power, to do many things of

choice which the laws do not prescribe.

        Sec. 161.  This power, whilst employed for the benefit of the

community, and suitably to the trust and ends of the government, is

undoubted prerogative, and never is questioned: for the people are very

seldom or never scrupulous or nice in the point; they are far from

examining prerogative, whilst it is in any tolerable degree employed for

the use it was meant, that is, for the good of the people, and not

manifestly against it: but if there comes to be a question between the

executive power and the people, about a thing claimed as a prerogative;

the tendency of the exercise of such prerogative to the good or hurt of

the people, will easily decide that question.

        Sec. 162.  It is easy to conceive, that in the infancy of governments,

when commonwealths differed little from families in number of people,

they differed from them too but little in number of laws: and the

governors, being as the fathers of them, watching over them for their

good, the government was almost all prerogative.  A few established laws

served the turn, and the discretion and care of the ruler supplied the

rest.  But when mistake or flattery prevailed with weak princes to make

use of this power for private ends of their own, and not for the public

good, the people were fain by express laws to get prerogative determined

in those points wherein they found disadvantage from it: and thus

declared limitations of prerogative were by the people found necessary in

cases which they and their ancestors had left, in the utmost latitude, to

the wisdom of those princes who made no other but a right use of it, that

is, for the good of their people.

        Sec. 163.  And therefore they have a very wrong notion of government,

who say, that the people have encroached upon the prerogative, when they

have got any part of it to be defined by positive laws: for in so doing

they have not pulled from the prince any thing that of right belonged to

him, but only declared, that that power which they indefinitely left in

his or his ancestors hands, to be exercised for their good, was not a

thing which they intended him when he used it otherwise: for the end of

government being the good of the community, whatsoever alterations are

made in it, tending to that end, cannot be an encroachment upon any body,

since no body in government can have a right tending to any other end:

and those only are encroachments which prejudice or hinder the public

good.  Those who say otherwise, speak as if the prince had a distinct and

separate interest from the good of the community, and was not made for

it; the root and source from which spring almost all those evils and

disorders which happen in kingly governments.  And indeed, if that be so,

the people under his government are not a society of rational creatures,

entered into a community for their mutual good; they are not such as have

set rulers over themselves, to guard, and promote that good; but are to

be looked on as an herd of inferior creatures under the dominion of a

master, who keeps them and works them for his own pleasure or profit.  If

men were so void of reason, and brutish, as to enter into society upon

such terms, prerogative might indeed be, what some men would have it, an

arbitrary power to do things hurtful to the people.

        Sec. 164.  But since a rational creature cannot be supposed, when

free, to put himself into subjection to another, for his own harm;

(though, where he finds a good and wise ruler, he may not perhaps think

it either necessary or useful to set precise bounds to his power in all

things) prerogative can be nothing but the people's permitting their

rulers to do several things, of their own free choice, where the law was

silent, and sometimes too against the direct letter of the law, for the

public good; and their acquiescing in it when so done: for as a good

prince, who is mindful of the trust put into his hands, and careful of

the good of his people, cannot have too much prerogative, that is, power

to do good; so a weak and ill prince, who would claim that power which

his predecessors exercised without the direction of the law, as a

prerogative belonging to him by right of his office, which he may

exercise at his pleasure, to make or promote an interest distinct from

that of the public, gives the people an occasion to claim their right,

and limit that power, which, whilst it was exercised for their good, they

were content should be tacitly allowed.

        Sec. 165.  And therefore he that will look into the history of

England, will find, that prerogative was always largest in the hands of

our wisest and best princes; because the people, observing the whole

tendency of their actions to be the public good, contested not what was

done without law to that end: or, if any human frailty or mistake (for

princes are but men, made as others) appeared in some small declinations

from that end; yet 'twas visible, the main of their conduct tended to

nothing but the care of the public.  The people therefore, finding reason

to be satisfied with these princes, whenever they acted without, or

contrary to the letter of the law, acquiesced in what they did, and,

without the least complaint, let them inlarge their prerogative as they

pleased, judging rightly, that they did nothing herein to the prejudice

of their laws, since they acted conformable to the foundation and end of

all laws, the public good.

        Sec. 166.  Such god-like princes indeed had some title to arbitrary

power by that argument, that would prove absolute monarchy the best

government, as that which God himself governs the universe by; because

such kings partake of his wisdom and goodness.  Upon this is founded that

saying, That the reigns of good princes have been always most dangerous

to the liberties of their people: for when their successors, managing the

government with different thoughts, would draw the actions of those good

rulers into precedent, and make them the standard of their prerogative,

as if what had been done only for the good of the people was a right in

them to do, for the harm of the people, if they so pleased; it has often

occasioned contest, and sometimes public disorders, before the people

could recover their original right, and get that to be declared not to be

prerogative, which truly was never so; since it is impossible that any

body in the society should ever have a right to do the people harm;

though it be very possible, and reasonable, that the people should not go

about to set any bounds to the prerogative of those kings, or rulers, who

themselves transgressed not the bounds of the public good: for

prerogative is nothing but the power of doing public good without a

rule.

        Sec. 167.  The power of calling parliaments in England, as to precise

time, place, and duration, is certainly a prerogative of the king, but

still with this trust, that it shall be made use of for the good of the

nation, as the exigencies of the times, and variety of occasions, shall

require: for it being impossible to foresee which should always be the

fittest place for them to assemble in, and what the best season; the

choice of these was left with the executive power, as might be most

subservient to the public good, and best suit the ends of parliaments.

        Sec. 168.  The old question will be asked in this matter of

prerogative, But who shall be judge when this power is made a right use

of one answer: between an executive power in being, with such a

prerogative, and a legislative that depends upon his will for their

convening, there can be no judge on earth; as there can be none between

the legislative and the people, should either the executive, or the

legislative, when they have got the power in their hands, design, or go

about to enslave or destroy them.  The people have no other remedy in

this, as in all other cases where they have no judge on earth, but to

appeal to heaven: for the rulers, in such attempts, exercising a power

the people never put into their hands, (who can never be supposed to

consent that any body should rule over them for their harm) do that which

they have not a right to do.  And where the body of the people, or any

single man, is deprived of their right, or is under the exercise of a

power without right, and have no appeal on earth, then they have a

liberty to appeal to heaven, whenever they judge the cause of sufficient

moment.  And therefore, though the people cannot be judge, so as to have,

by the constitution of that society, any superior power, to determine and

give effective sentence in the case; yet they have, by a law antecedent

and paramount to all positive laws of men, reserved that ultimate

determination to themselves which belongs to all mankind, where there

lies no appeal on earth, viz.  to judge, whether they have just cause to

make their appeal to heaven.  And this judgment they cannot part with, it

being out of a man's power so to submit himself to another, as to give

him a liberty to destroy him; God and nature never allowing a man so to

abandon himself, as to neglect his own preservation: and since he cannot

take away his own life, neither can he give another power to take it.

Nor let any one think, this lays a perpetual foundation for disorder; for

this operates not, till the inconveniency is so great, that the majority

feel it, and are weary of it, and find a necessity to have it amended.

But this the executive power, or wise princes, never need come in the

danger of: and it is the thing, of all others, they have most need to

avoid, as of all others the most perilous.

 

 

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CHAP.  XV.

 

          Of Paternal, Political, and Despotical Power,

                      considered together.

 

        Sec. 169.  THOUGH I have had occasion to speak of these separately

before, yet the great mistakes of late about government, having, as I

suppose, arisen from confounding these distinct powers one with another,

it may not, perhaps, be amiss to consider them here together.

        Sec. 170.  First, then, Paternal or parental power is nothing but that

which parents have over their children, to govern them for the children's

good, till they come to the use of reason, or a state of knowledge,

wherein they may be supposed capable to understand that rule, whether it

be the law of nature, or the municipal law of their country, they are to

govern themselves by: capable, I say, to know it, as well as several

others, who live as freemen under that law.  The affection and tenderness

which God hath planted in the breast of parents towards their children,

makes it evident, that this is not intended to be a severe arbitrary

government, but only for the help, instruction, and preservation of their

offspring.  But happen it as it will, there is, as I have proved, no

reason why it should be thought to extend to life and death, at any time,

over their children, more than over any body else; neither can there be

any pretence why this parental power should keep the child, when grown to

a man, in subjection to the will of his parents, any farther than having

received life and education from his parents, obliges him to respect,

honour, gratitude, assistance and support, all his life, to both father

and mother.  And thus, 'tis true, the paternal is a natural government,

but not at all extending itself to the ends and jurisdictions of that

which is political.  The power of the father doth not reach at all to the

property of the child, which is only in his own disposing.

        Sec. 171.  Secondly, Political power is that power, which every man

having in the state of nature, has given up into the hands of the

society, and therein to the governors, whom the society hath set over

itself, with this express or tacit trust, that it shall be employed for

their good, and the preservation of their property: now this power, which

every man has in the state of nature, and which he parts with to the

society in all such cases where the society can secure him, is to use

such means, for the preserving of his own property, as he thinks good,

and nature allows him; and to punish the breach of the law of nature in

others, so as (according to the best of his reason) may most conduce to

the preservation of himself, and the rest of mankind.  So that the end

and measure of this power, when in every man's hands in the state of

nature, being the preservation of all of his society, that is, all

mankind in general, it can have no other end or measure, when in the

hands of the magistrate, but to preserve the members of that society in

their lives, liberties, and possessions; and so cannot be an absolute,

arbitrary power over their lives and fortunes, which are as much as

possible to be preserved; but a power to make laws, and annex such

penalties to them, as may tend to the preservation of the whole, by

cutting off those parts, and those only, which are so corrupt, that they

threaten the sound and healthy, without which no severity is lawful.  And

this power has its original only from compact and agreement, and the

mutual consent of those who make up the community.

        Sec. 172.  Thirdly, Despotical power is an absolute, arbitrary power

one man has over another, to take away his life, whenever he pleases.

This is a power, which neither nature gives, for it has made no such

distinction between one man and another; nor compact can convey: for man

not having such an arbitrary power over his own life, cannot give another

man such a power over it; but it is the effect only of forfeiture, which

the aggressor makes of his own life, when he puts himself into the state

of war with another: for having quitted reason, which God hath given to

be the rule betwixt man and man, and the common bond whereby human kind

is united into one fellowship and society; and having renounced the way

of peace which that teaches, and made use of the force of war, to compass

his unjust ends upon another, where he has no right; and so revolting

from his own kind to that of beasts, by making force, which is their's,

to be his rule of right, he renders himself liable to be destroyed by the

injured person, and the rest of mankind, that will join with him in the

execution of justice, as any other wild beast, or noxious brute, with

whom mankind can have neither society nor security*.  And thus captives,

taken in a just and lawful war, and such only, are subject to a

despotical power, which, as it arises not from compact, so neither is it

capable of any, but is the state of war continued: for what compact can

be made with a man that is not master of his own life? what condition can

he perform? and if he be once allowed to be master of his own life, the

despotical, arbitrary power of his master ceases.  He that is master of

himself, and his own life, has a right too to the means of preserving it;

so that as soon as compact enters, slavery ceases, and he so far quits

his absolute power, and puts an end to the state of war, who enters into

conditions with his captive.        (*Another copy corrected by Mr.  Locke,

has it thus, Noxious brute that is destructive to their being.)

        Sec. 173.  Nature gives the first of these, viz.  paternal power to

parents for the benefit of their children during their minority, to

supply their want of ability, and understanding how to manage their

property.  (By property I must be understood here, as in other places, to

mean that property which men have in their persons as well as goods.)

Voluntary agreement gives the second, viz.  political power to governors

for the benefit of their subjects, to secure them in the possession and

use of their properties.  And forfeiture gives the third despotical power

to lords for their own benefit, over those who are stripped of all

property.

        Sec. 174.  He, that shall consider the distinct rise and extent, and

the different ends of these several powers, will plainly see, that

paternal power comes as far short of that of the magistrate, as

despotical exceeds it; and that absolute dominion, however placed, is so

far from being one kind of civil society, that it is as inconsistent with

it, as slavery is with property.  Paternal power is only where minority

makes the child incapable to manage his property; political, where men

have property in their own disposal; and despotical, over such as have no

property at all.

 

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CHAP.  XVI.

 

                          Of CONQUEST.

 

        Sec. 175.  THOUGH governments can originally have no other rise than

that before mentioned, nor polities be founded on any thing but the

consent of the people; yet such have been the disorders ambition has

filled the world with, that in the noise of war, which makes so great a

part of the history of mankind, this consent is little taken notice of:

and therefore many have mistaken the force of arms for the consent of the

people, and reckon conquest as one of the originals of government.  But

conquest is as far from setting up any government, as demolishing an

house is from building a new one in the place.  Indeed, it often makes

way for a new frame of a common-wealth, by destroying the former; but,

without the consent of the people, can never erect a new one.

        Sec. 176.  That the aggressor, who puts himself into the state of war

with another, and unjustly invades another man's right, can, by such an

unjust war, never come to have a right over the conquered, will be easily

agreed by all men, who will not think, that robbers and pyrates have a

right of empire over whomsoever they have force enough to master; or that

men are bound by promises, which unlawful force extorts from them.

Should a robber break into my house, and with a dagger at my throat make

me seal deeds to convey my estate to him, would this give him any title?

Just such a title, by his sword, has an unjust conqueror, who forces me

into submission.  The injury and the crime is equal, whether committed by

the wearer of a crown, or some petty villain.  The title of the offender,

and the number of his followers, make no difference in the offence,

unless it be to aggravate it.  The only difference is, great robbers

punish little ones, to keep them in their obedience; but the great ones

are rewarded with laurels and triumphs, because they are too big for the

weak hands of justice in this world, and have the power in their own

possession, which should punish offenders.  What is my remedy against a

robber, that so broke into my house? Appeal to the law for justice.  But

perhaps justice is denied, or I am crippled and cannot stir, robbed and

have not the means to do it.  If God has taken away all means of seeking

remedy, there is nothing left but patience.  But my son, when able, may

seek the relief of the law, which I am denied: he or his son may renew

his appeal, till he recover his right.  But the conquered, or their

children, have no court, no arbitrator on earth to appeal to.  Then they

may appeal, as lephtha did, to heaven, and repeat their appeal till they

have recovered the native right of their ancestors, which was, to have

such a legislative over them, as the majority should approve, and freely

acquiesce in.  If it be objected, This would cause endless trouble; I

answer, no more than justice does, where she lies open to all that appeal

to her.  He that troubles his neighbour without a cause, is punished for

it by the justice of the court he appeals to: and he that appeals to

heaven must be sure he has right on his side; and a right too that is

worth the trouble and cost of the appeal, as he will answer at a tribunal

that cannot be deceived, and will be sure to retribute to every one

according to the mischiefs he hath created to his fellow subjects; that

is, any part of mankind: from whence it is plain, that he that conquers

in an unjust war can thereby have no title to the subjection and

obedience of the conquered.

        Sec. 177.  But supposing victory favours the right side, let us

consider a conqueror in a lawful war, and see what power he gets, and

over whom.

  First, It is plain he gets no power by his conquest over those that

conquered with him.  They that fought on his side cannot suffer by the

conquest, but must at least be as much freemen as they were before.  And

most commonly they serve upon terms, and on condition to share with their

leader, and enjoy a part of the spoil, and other advantages that attend

the conquering sword; or at least have a part of the subdued country

bestowed upon them.  And the conquering people are not, I hope, to be

slaves by conquest, and wear their laurels only to shew they are

sacrifices to their leaders triumph.  They that found absolute monarchy

upon the title of the sword, make their heroes, who are the founders of

such monarchies, arrant Draw-can-sirs, and forget they had any officers

and soldiers that fought on their side in the battles they won, or

assisted them in the subduing, or shared in possessing, the countries

they mastered.  We are told by some, that the English monarchy is founded

in the Norman conquest, and that our princes have thereby a title to

absolute dominion: which if it were true, (as by the history it appears

otherwise) and that William had a right to make war on this island; yet

his dominion by conquest could reach no farther than to the Saxons and

Britons, that were then inhabitants of this country.  The Normans that

came with him, and helped to conquer, and all descended from them, are

freemen, and no subjects by conquest; let that give what dominion it

will.  And if 1, or any body else, shall claim freedom, as derived from

them, it will be very hard to prove the contrary: and it is plain, the

law, that has made no distinction between the one and the other, intends

not there should be any difference in their freedom or privileges.

        Sec. 178.  But supposing, which seldom happens, that the conquerors

and conquered never incorporate into one people, under the same laws and

freedom; let us see next what power a lawful conqueror has over the

subdued: and that I say is purely despotical.  He has an absolute power

over the lives of those who by an unjust war have forfeited them; but not

over the lives or fortunes of those who engaged not in the war, nor over

the possessions even of those who were actually engaged in it.

        Sec. 179.  Secondly, I say then the conqueror gets no power but only

over those who have actually assisted, concurred, or consented to that

unjust force that is used against him: for the people having given to

their governors no power to do an unjust thing, such as is to make an

unjust war, (for they never had such a power in themselves) they ought

not to be charged as guilty of the violence and unjustice that is

committed in an unjust war, any farther than they actually abet it; no

more than they are to be thought guilty of any violence or oppression

their governors should use upon the people themselves, or any part of

their fellow subjects, they having empowered them no more to the one than

to the other.  Conquerors, it is true, seldom trouble themselves to make

the distinction, but they willingly permit the confusion of war to sweep

all together: but yet this alters not the right; for the conquerors power

over the lives of the conquered, being only because they have used force

to do, or maintain an injustice, he can have that power only over those

who have concurred in that force; all the rest are innocent; and he has

no more title over the people of that country, who have done him no

injury, and so have made no forfeiture of their lives, than he has over

any other, who, without any injuries or provocations, have lived upon

fair terms with him.

        Sec. 180.  Thirdly, The power a conqueror gets over those he overcomes

in a just war, is perfectly despotical: he has an absolute power over the

lives of those, who, by putting themselves in a state of war, have

forfeited them; but he has not thereby a right and title to their

possessions.  This I doubt not, but at first sight will seem a strange

doctrine, it being so quite contrary to the practice of the world; there

being nothing more familiar in speaking of the dominion of countries,

than to say such an one conquered it; as if conquest, without any more

ado, conveyed a right of possession.  But when we consider, that the

practice of the strong and powerful, how universal soever it may be, is

seldom the rule of right, however it be one part of the subjection of the

conquered, not to argue against the conditions cut out to them by the

conquering sword.

        Sec. 181.  Though in all war there be usually a complication of force

and damage, and the aggressor seldom fails to harm the estate, when he

uses force against the persons of those he makes war upon; yet it is the

use of force only that puts a man into the state of war: for whether by

force he begins the injury, or else having quietly, and by fraud, done

the injury, he refuses to make reparation, and by force maintains it,

(which is the same thing, as at first to have done it by force) it is the

unjust use of force that makes the war: for he that breaks open my house,

and violently turns me out of doors; or having peaceably got in, by force

keeps me out, does in effect the same thing; supposing we are in such a

state, that we have no common judge on earth, whom I may appeal to, and

to whom we are both obliged to submit: for of such I am now speaking.  It

is the unjust use of force then, that puts a man into the state of war

with another; and thereby he that is guilty of it makes a forfeiture of

his life: for quitting reason, which is the rule given between man and

man, and using force, the way of beasts, he becomes liable to be

destroyed by him he uses force against, as any savage ravenous beast,

that is dangerous to his being.

        Sec. 182.  But because the miscarriages of the father are no faults of

the children, and they may be rational and peaceable, notwithstanding the

brutishness and injustice of the father; the father, by his miscarriages

and violence, can forfeit but his own life, but involves not his children

in his guilt or destruction.  His goods, which nature, that willeth the

preservation of all mankind as much as is possible, hath made to belong

to the children to keep them from perishing, do still continue to belong

to his children: for supposing them not to have joined in the war, either

thro' infancy, absence, or choice, they have done nothing to forfeit

them: nor has the conqueror any right to take them away, by the bare

title of having subdued him that by force attempted his destruction;

though perhaps he may have some right to them, to repair the damages he

has sustained by the war, and the defence of his own right; which how far

it reaches to the possessions of the conquered, we shall see by and by.

So that he that by conquest has a right over a man's person to destroy

him if he pleases, has not thereby a right over his estate to possess and

enjoy it: for it is the brutal force the aggressor has used, that gives

his adversary a right to take away his life, and destroy him if he

pleases, as a noxious creature; but it is damage sustained that alone

gives him title to another man's goods: for though I may kill a thief

that sets on me in the highway, yet I may not (which seems less) take

away his money, and let him go: this would be robbery on my side.  His

force, and the state of war he put himself in, made him forfeit his life,

but gave me no title to his goods.  The right then of conquest extends

only to the lives of those who joined in the war, not to their estates,

but only in order to make reparation for the damages received, and the

charges of the war, and that too with reservation of the right of the

innocent wife and children.

        Sec. 183.  Let the conqueror have as much justice on his side, as

could be supposed, he has no right to seize more than the vanquished

could forfeit: his life is at the victor's mercy; and his service and

goods he may appropriate, to make himself reparation; but he cannot take

the goods of his wife and children; they too had a title to the goods he

enjoyed, and their shares in the estate he possessed: for example, I in

the state of nature (and all commonwealths are in the state of nature one

with another) have injured another man, and refusing to give

satisfaction, it comes to a state of war, wherein my defending by force

what I had gotten unjustly, makes me the aggressor.  I am conquered: my

life, it is true, as forfeit, is at mercy, but not my wife's and

children's.  They made not the war, nor assisted in it.  I could not

forfeit their lives; they were not mine to forfeit.  My wife had a share

in my estate; that neither could I forfeit.  And my children also, being

born of me, had a right to be maintained out of my labour or substance.

Here then is the case: the conqueror has a title to reparation for

damages received, and the children have a title to their father's estate

for their subsistence: for as to the wife's share, whether her own

labour, or compact, gave her a title to it, it is plain, her husband

could not forfeit what was her's.  What must be done in the case? I

answer; the fundamental law of nature being, that all, as much as may be,

should be preserved, it follows, that if there be not enough fully to

satisfy both, viz, for the conqueror's losses, and children's

maintenance, he that hath, and to spare, must remit something of his full

satisfaction, and give way to the pressing and preferable title of those

who are in danger to perish without it.

        Sec. 184.  But supposing the charge and damages of the war are to be

made up to the conqueror, to the utmost farthing; and that the children

of the vanquished, spoiled of all their father's goods, are to be left to

starve and perish; yet the satisfying of what shall, on this score, be

due to the conqueror, will scarce give him a title to any country he

shall conquer: for the damages of war can scarce amount to the value of

any considerable tract of land, in any part of the world, where all the

land is possessed, and none lies waste.  And if I have not taken away the

conqueror's land, which, being vanquished, it is impossible I should;

scarce any other spoil I have done him can amount to the value of mine,

supposing it equally cultivated, and of an extent any way coming near

what I had overrun of his.  The destruction of a year's product or two

(for it seldom reaches four or five) is the utmost spoil that usually can

be done: for as to money, and such riches and treasure taken away, these

are none of nature's goods, they have but a fantastical imaginary value:

nature has put no such upon them: they are of no more account by her

standard, than the wampompeke of the Americans to an European prince, or

the silver money of Europe would have been formerly to an American.  And

five years product is not worth the perpetual inheritance of land, where

all is possessed, and none remains waste, to be taken up by him that is

disseized: which will be easily granted, if one do but take away the

imaginary value of money, the disproportion being more than between five

and five hundred; though, at the same time, half a year's product is more

worth than the inheritance, where there being more land than the

inhabitants possess and make use of, any one has liberty to make use of

the waste: but there conquerors take little care to possess themselves of

the lands of the vanquished, No damage therefore, that men in the state

of nature (as all princes and governments are in reference to one

another) suffer from one another, can give a conqueror power to

dispossess the posterity of the vanquished, and turn them out of that

inheritance, which ought to be the possession of them and their

descendants to all generations.  The conqueror indeed will be apt to

think himself master: and it is the very condition of the subdued not to

be able to dispute their right.  But if that be all, it gives no other

title than what bare force gives to the stronger over the weaker: and, by

this reason, he that is strongest will have a right to whatever he

pleases to seize on.

        Sec. 185.  Over those then that joined with him in the war, and over

those of the subdued country that opposed him not, and the posterity even

of those that did, the conqueror, even in a just war, hath, by his

conquest, no right of dominion: they are free from any subjection to him,

and if their former government be dissolved, they are at liberty to begin

and erect another to themselves.

        Sec. 186.  The conqueror, it is true, usually, by the force he has

over them, compels them, with a sword at their breasts, to stoop to his

conditions, and submit to such a government as he pleases to afford them;

but the enquiry is, what right he has to do so? If it be said, they

submit by their own consent, then this allows their own consent to be

necessary to give the conqueror a title to rule over them.  It remains

only to be considered, whether promises extorted by force, without right,

can be thought consent, and how far they bind.  To which I shall say,

they bind not at all; because whatsoever another gets from me by force, I

still retain the right of, and he is obliged presently to restore.  He

that forces my horse from me, ought presently to restore him, and I have

still a right to retake him.  By the same reason, he that forced a

promise from me, ought presently to restore it, i.e.  quit me of the

obligation of it; or I may resume it myself, i.e.  chuse whether I will

perform it: for the law of nature laying an obligation on me only by the

rules she prescribes, cannot oblige me by the violation of her rules:

such is the extorting any thing from me by force.  Nor does it at all

alter the case to say, I gave my promise, no more than it excuses the

force, and passes the right, when I put my hand in my pocket, and deliver

my purse myself to a thief, who demands it with a pistol at my breast.

        Sec. 187.  From all which it follows, that the government of a

conqueror, imposed by force on the subdued, against whom he had no right

of war, or who joined not in the war against him, where he had right, has

no obligation upon them.

        Sec. 188.  But let us suppose, that all the men of that community,

being all members of the same body politic, may be taken to have joined

in that unjust war wherein they are subdued, and so their lives are at

the mercy of the conqueror.

        Sec. 189.  1 say, this concerns not their children who are in their

minority: for since a father hath not, in himself, a power over the life

or liberty of his child, no act of his can possibly forfeit it.  So that

the children, whatever may have happened to the fathers, are freemen, and

the absolute power of the conqueror reaches no farther than the persons

of the men that were subdued by him, and dies with them: and should he

govern them as slaves, subjected to his absolute arbitrary power, he has

no such right of dominion over their children.  He can have no power over

them but by their own consent, whatever he may drive them to say or do;

and he has no lawfull authority, whilst force, and not choice, compels

them to submission.

        Sec. 190.  Every man is born with a double right: first, a right of

freedom to his person, which no other man has a power over, but the free

disposal of it lies in himself.  Secondly, a right, before any other man,

to inherit with his brethren his father's goods.

        Sec. 191.  By the first of these, a man is naturally free from

subjection to any government, tho' he be born in a place under its

jurisdiction; but if he disclaim the lawful government of the country he

was born in, he must also quit the right that belonged to him by the laws

of it, and the possessions there descending to him from his ancestors, if

it were a government made by their consent.

        Sec. 192.  By the second, the inhabitants of any country, who are

descended, and derive a title to their estates from those who are

subdued, and had a government forced upon them against their free

consents, retain a right to the possession of their ancestors, though

they consent not freely to the government, whose hard conditions were by

force imposed on the possessors of that country: for the first conqueror

never having had a title to the land of that country, the people who are

the descendants of, or claim under those who were forced to submit to the

yoke of a government by constraint, have always a right to shake it off,

and free themselves from the usurpation or tyranny which the sword hath

brought in upon them, till their rulers put them under such a frame of

government as they willingly and of choice consent to.  Who doubts but

the Grecian Christians, descendants of the ancient possessors of that

country, may justly cast off the Turkish yoke, which they have so long

groaned under, whenever they have an opportunity to do it? For no

government can have a right to obedience from a people who have not

freely consented to it; which they can never be supposed to do, till

either they are put in a full state of liberty to chuse their government

and governors, or at least till they have such standing laws, to which

they have by themselves or their representatives given their free

consent, and also till they are allowed their due property, which is so

to be proprietors of what they have, that no body can take away any part

of it without their own consent, without which, men under any government

are not in the state of freemen, but are direct slaves under the force of

war.

        Sec. 193.  But granting that the conqueror in a just war has a right

to the estates, as well as power over the persons, of the conquered;

which, it is plain, he hath not: nothing of absolute power will follow

from hence, in the continuance of the government; because the descendants

of these being all freemen, if he grants them estates and possessions to

inhabit his country, (without which it would be worth nothing) whatsoever

he grants them, they have, so far as it is granted, property in.  The

nature whereof is, that without a man's own consent it cannot be taken

from him,

        Sec. 194.  Their persons are free by a native right, and their

properties, be they more or less, are their own, and at their own

dispose, and not at his; or else it is no property.  Supposing the

conqueror gives to one man a thousand acres, to him and his heirs for

ever; to another he lets a thousand acres for his life, under the rent of

501.  or 5001.  per arm.  has not the one of these a right to his

thousand acres for ever, and the other, during his life, paying the said

rent? and hath not the tenant for life a property in all that he gets

over and above his rent, by his labour and industry during the said term,

supposing it be double the rent? Can any one say, the king, or conqueror,

after his grant, may by his power of conqueror take away all, or part of

the land from the heirs of one, or from the other during his life, he

paying the rent? or can he take away from either the goods or money they

have got upon the said land, at his pleasure? If he can, then all free

and voluntary contracts cease, and are void in the world; there needs

nothing to dissolve them at any time, but power enough: and all the

grants and promises of men in power are but mockery and collusion: for

can there be any thing more ridiculous than to say, I give you and your's

this for ever, and that in the surest and most solemn way of conveyance

can be devised; and yet it is to be understood, that I have right, if I

please, to take it away from you again to morrow?

        Sec. 195.  1 will not dispute now whether princes are exempt from the

laws of their country; but this I am sure, they owe subjection to the

laws of God and nature.  No body, no power, can exempt them from the

obligations of that eternal law.  Those are so great, and so strong, in

the case of promises, that omnipotency itself can be tied by them.

Grants, promises, and oaths, are bonds that hold the Almighty: whatever

some flatterers say to princes of the world, who all together, with all

their people joined to them, are, in comparison of the great God, but as

a drop of the bucket, or a dust on the balance, inconsiderable, nothing!

        Sec. 196.  The short of the case in conquest is this: the conqueror,

if he have a just cause, has a despotical right over the persons of all,

that actually aided, and concurred in the war against him, and a right to

make up his damage and cost out of their labour and estates, so he injure

not the right of any other.  Over the rest of the people, if there were

any that consented not to the war, and over the children of the captives

themselves, or the possessions of either, he has no power; and so can

have, by virtue of conquest, no lawful title himself to dominion over

them, or derive it to his posterity; but is an aggressor, if he attempts

upon their properties, and thereby puts himself in a state of war against

them, and has no better a right of principality, he, nor any of his

successors, than Hingar, or Hubba, the Danes, had here in England; or

Spartacus, had he conquered Italy, would have had; which is to have their

yoke cast off, as soon as God shall give those under their subjection

courage and opportunity to do it.  Thus, notwithstanding whatever title

the kings of Assyria had over Judah, by the sword, God assisted Hezekiah

to throw off the dominion of that conquering empire.  And the lord was

with Hezekiah, and he prospered; wherefore he went forth, and he rebelled

against the king of Assyria, and served him not, 2 Kings xviii.  7.

Whence it is plain, that shaking off a power, which force, and not right,

hath set over any one, though it hath the name of rebellion, yet is no

offence before God, but is that which he allows and countenances, though

even promises and covenants, when obtained by force, have intervened: for

it is very probable, to any one that reads the story of Ahaz and Hezekiah

attentively, that the Assyrians subdued Ahaz, and deposed him, and made

Hezekiah king in his father's lifetime; and that Hezekiah by agreement

had done him homage, and paid him tribute all this time.

 

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CHAP.  XVII.

 

                        Of USURPATION.

 

        Sec. 197.  AS conquest may be called a foreign usurpation, so

usurpation is a kind of domestic conquest, with this difference, that an

usurper can never have right on his side, it being no usurpation, but

where one is got into the possession of what another has right to.  This,

so far as it is usurpation, is a change only of persons, but not of the

forms and rules of the government: for if the usurper extend his power

beyond what of right belonged to the lawful princes, or governors of the

commonwealth, it is tyranny added to usurpation.

        Sec. 198.  In all lawful governments, the designation of the persons,

who are to bear rule, is as natural and necessary a part as the form of

the government itself, and is that which had its establishment originally

from the people; the anarchy being much alike, to have no form of

government at all; or to agree, that it shall be monarchical, but to

appoint no way to design the person that shall have the power, and be the

monarch.  Hence all commonwealths, with the form of government

established, have rules also of appointing those who are to have any

share in the public authority, and settled methods of conveying the right

to them: for the anarchy is much alike, to have no form of government at

all; or to agree that it shall be monarchical, but to appoint no way to

know or design the person that shall have the power, and be the monarch.

Whoever gets into the exercise of any part of the power, by other ways

than what the laws of the community have prescribed, hath no right to be

obeyed, though the form of the commonwealth be still preserved; since he

is not the person the laws have appointed, and consequently not the

person the people have consented to.  Nor can such an usurper, or any

deriving from him, ever have a title, till the people are both at liberty

to consent, and have actually consented to allow, and confirm in him the

power he hath till then usurped.

 

 

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CHAP.  XVIII.

 

                        Of TYRANNY.

 

        Sec. 199.  AS usurpation is the exercise of power, which another hath

a right to; so tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which no

body can have a right to.  And this is making use of the power any one

has in his hands, not for the good of those who are under it, but for his

own private separate advantage.  When the governor, however intitled,

makes not the law, but his will, the rule; and his commands and actions

are not directed to the preservation of the properties of his people, but

the satisfaction of his own ambition, revenge, covetousness, or any other

irregular passion.

        Sec. 200.  If one can doubt this to be truth, or reason, because it

comes from the obscure hand of a subject, I hope the authority of a king

will make it pass with him.  King James the first, in his speech to the

parliament, 1603, tells them thus, I will ever prefer the weal of the

public, and of the whole commonwealth, in making of good laws and

constitutions, to any particular and private ends of mine; thinking ever

the wealth and weal of the commonwealth to be my greatest weal and

worldly felicity; a point wherein a lawful king doth directly differ from

a tyrant: for I do acknowledge, that the special and greatest point of

difference that is between a rightful king and an usurping tyrant, is

this, that whereas the proud and ambitious tyrant doth think his kingdom

and people are only ordained for satisfaction of his desires and

unreasonable appetites, the righteous and just king doth by the contrary

acknowledge himself to be ordained for the procuring of the wealth and

property of his people, And again, in his speech to the parliament, 1609,

he hath these words, The king binds himself by a double oath, to the

observation of the fundamental laws of his kingdom; tacitly, as by being

a king, and so bound to protect as well the people, as the laws of his

kingdom; and expressly, by his oath at his coronation, so as every just

king, in a settled kingdom, is bound to observe that paction made to his

people, by his laws, in framing his government agreeable thereunto,

according to that paction which God made with Noah after the deluge.

Hereafter, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and

winter, and day and night, shall not cease while the earth remaineth.

And therefore a king governing in a settled kingdom, leaves to be a king,

and degenerates into a tyrant, as soon as he leaves off to rule according

to his laws, And a little after, Therefore all kings that are not

tyrants, or perjured, will be glad to bound themselves within the limits

of their laws; and they that persuade them the contrary, are vipers, and

pests both against them and the commonwealth.  Thus that learned king,

who well understood the notion of things, makes the difference betwixt a

king and a tyrant to consist only in this, that one makes the laws the

bounds of his power, and the good of the public, the end of his

government; the other makes all give way to his own will and appetite.

        Sec. 201.  It is a mistake, to think this fault is proper only to

monarchies; other forms of government are liable to it, as well as that:

for wherever the power, that is put in any hands for the government of

the people, and the preservation of their properties, is applied to other

ends, and made use of to impoverish, harass, or subdue them to the

arbitrary and irregular commands of those that have it; there it

presently becomes tyranny, whether those that thus use it are one or

many.  Thus we read of the thirty tyrants at Athens, as well as one at

Syracuse; and the intolerable dominion of the Decemviri at Rome was

nothing better.

        Sec. 202.  Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be

transgressed to another's harm; and whosoever in authority exceeds the

power given him by the law, and makes use of the force he has under his

command, to compass that upon the subject, which the law allows not,

ceases in that to be a magistrate; and, acting without authority, may be

opposed, as any other man, who by force invades the right of another.

This is acknowledged in subordinate magistrates.  He that hath authority

to seize my person in the street, may be opposed as a thief and a robber,

if he endeavours to break into my house to execute a writ,

notwithstanding that I know he has such a warrant, and such a legal

authority, as will impower him to arrest me abroad.  And why this should

not hold in the highest, as well as in the most inferior magistrate, I

would gladly be informed.  Is it reasonable, that the eldest brother,

because he has the greatest part of his father's estate, should thereby

have a right to take away any of his younger brothers portions? or that a

rich man, who possessed a whole country, should from thence have a right

to seize, when he pleased, the cottage and garden of his poor neighbour?

The being rightfully possessed of great power and riches, exceedingly

beyond the greatest part of the sons of Adam, is so far from being an

excuse, much less a reason, for rapine and oppression, which the

endamaging another without authority is, that it is a great aggravation

of it: for the exceeding the bounds of authority is no more a right in a

great, than in a petty officer; no more justifiable in a king than a

constable; but is so much the worse in him, in that he has more trust put

in him, has already a much greater share than the rest of his brethren,

and is supposed, from the advantages of his education, employment, and

counsellors, to be more knowing in the measures of right and wrong.

        Sec. 203.  May the commands then of a prince be opposed? may he be

resisted as often as any one shall find himself aggrieved, and but

imagine he has not right done him? This will unhinge and overturn all

polities, and, instead of government and order, leave nothing but anarchy

and confusion.

        Sec. 204.  To this I answer, that force is to be opposed to nothing,

but to unjust and unlawful force; whoever makes any opposition in any

other case, draws on himself a just condemnation both from God and man;

and so no such danger or confusion will follow, as is often suggested:

for,

        Sec. 205.  First, As, in some countries, the person of the prince by

the law is sacred; and so, whatever he commands or does, his person is

still free from all question or violence, not liable to force, or any

judicial censure or condemnation.  But yet opposition may be made to the

illegal acts of any inferior officer, or other commissioned by him;

unless he will, by actually putting himself into a state of war with his

people, dissolve the government, and leave them to that defence which

belongs to every one in the state of nature: for of such things who can

tell what the end will be? and a neighbour kingdom has shewed the world

an odd example.  In all other cases the sacredness of the person exempts

him from all inconveniencies, whereby he is secure, whilst the government

stands, from all violence and harm whatsoever; than which there cannot be

a wiser constitution: for the harm he can do in his own person not being

likely to happen often, nor to extend itself far; nor being able by his

single strength to subvert the laws, nor oppress the body of the people,

should any prince have so much weakness, and ill nature as to be willing

to do it, the inconveniency of some particular mischiefs, that may happen

sometimes, when a heady prince comes to the throne, are well recompensed

by the peace of the public, and security of the government, in the person

of the chief magistrate, thus set out of the reach of danger: it being

safer for the body, that some few private men should be sometimes in

danger to suffer, than that the head of the republic should be easily,

and upon slight occasions, exposed.

        Sec. 206.  Secondly, But this privilege, belonging only to the king's

person, hinders not, but they may be questioned, opposed, and resisted,

who use unjust force, though they pretend a commission from him, which

the law authorizes not; as is plain in the case of him that has the

king's writ to arrest a man, which is a full commission from the king;

and yet he that has it cannot break open a man's house to do it, nor

execute this command of the king upon certain days, nor in certain

places, though this commission have no such exception in it; but they are

the limitations of the law, which if any one transgress, the king's

commission excuses him not: for the king's authority being given him only

by the law, he cannot impower any one to act against the law, or justify

him, by his commission, in so doing; the commission, or command of any

magistrate, where he has no authority, being as void and insignificant,

as that of any private man; the difference between the one and the other,

being that the magistrate has some authority so far, and to such ends,

and the private man has none at all: for it is not the commission, but

the authority, that gives the right of acting; and against the laws there

can be no authority.  But, notwithstanding such resistance, the king's

person and authority are still both secured, and so no danger to governor

or government,

        Sec. 207.  Thirdly, Supposing a government wherein the person of the

chief magistrate is not thus sacred; yet this doctrine of the lawfulness

of resisting all unlawful exercises of his power, will not upon every

slight occasion indanger him, or imbroil the government: for where the

injured party may be relieved, and his damages repaired by appeal to the

law, there can be no pretence for force, which is only to be used where a

man is intercepted from appealing to the law: for nothing is to be

accounted hostile force, but where it leaves not the remedy of such an

appeal; and it is such force alone, that puts him that uses it into a

state of war, and makes it lawful to resist him.  A man with a sword in

his hand demands my purse in the high-way, when perhaps I have not twelve

pence in my pocket: this man I may lawfully kill.  To another I deliver

100 pounds to hold only whilst I alight, which he refuses to restore me, when

I am got up again, but draws his sword to defend the possession of it by

force, if I endeavour to retake it.  The mischief this man does me is a

hundred, or possibly a thousand times more than the other perhaps

intended me (whom I killed before he really did me any); and yet I might

lawfully kill the one, and cannot so much as hurt the other lawfully.

The reason whereof is plain; because the one using force, which

threatened my life, I could not have time to appeal to the law to secure

it: and when it was gone, it was too late to appeal.  The law could not

restore life to my dead carcass: the loss was irreparable; which to

prevent, the law of nature gave me a right to destroy him, who had put

himself into a state of war with me, and threatened my destruction.  But

in the other case, my life not being in danger, I may have the benefit of

appealing to the law, and have reparation for my 100 pounds that way.

        Sec. 208.  Fourthly, But if the unlawful acts done by the magistrate

be maintained (by the power he has got), and the remedy which is due by

law, be by the same power obstructed; yet the right of resisting, even in

such manifest acts of tyranny, will not suddenly, or on slight occasions,

disturb the government: for if it reach no farther than some private

men's cases, though they have a right to defend themselves, and to

recover by force what by unlawful force is taken from them; yet the right

to do so will not easily engage them in a contest, wherein they are sure

to perish; it being as impossible for one, or a few oppressed men to

disturb the government, where the body of the people do not think

themselves concerned in it, as for a raving mad-man, or heady malcontent

to overturn a well settled state; the people being as little apt to

follow the one, as the other.

        Sec. 209.  But if either these illegal acts have extended to the

majority of the people; or if the mischief and oppression has lighted

only on some few, but in such cases, as the precedent, and consequences

seem to threaten all; and they are persuaded in their consciences, that

their laws, and with them their estates, liberties, and lives are in

danger, and perhaps their religion too; how they will be hindered from

resisting illegal force, used against them, I cannot tell.  This is an

inconvenience, I confess, that attends all governments whatsoever, when

the governors have brought it to this pass, to be generally suspected of

their people; the most dangerous state which they can possibly put

themselves in, wherein they are the less to be pitied, because it is so

easy to be avoided; it being as impossible for a governor, if he really

means the good of his people, and the preservation of them, and their

laws together, not to make them see and feel it, as it is for the father

of a family, not to let his children see he loves, and takes care of

them.

        Sec. 210.  But if all the world shall observe pretences of one kind,

and actions of another; arts used to elude the law, and the trust of

prerogative (which is an arbitrary power in some things left in the

prince's hand to do good, not harm to the people) employed contrary to

the end for which it was given: if the people shall find the ministers

and subordinate magistrates chosen suitable to such ends, and favoured,

or laid by, proportionably as they promote or oppose them: if they see

several experiments made of arbitrary power, and that religion underhand

favoured, (tho' publicly proclaimed against) which is readiest to

introduce it; and the operators in it supported, as much as may be; and

when that cannot be done, yet approved still, and liked the better: if a

long train of actions shew the councils all tending that way; how can a

man any more hinder himself from being persuaded in his own mind, which

way things are going; or from casting about how to save himself, than he

could from believing the captain of the ship he was in, was carrying him,

and the rest of the company, to Algiers, when he found him always

steering that course, though cross winds, leaks in his ship, and want of

men and provisions did often force him to turn his course another way for

some time, which he steadily returned to again, as soon as the wind,

weather, and other circumstances would let him?

 

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CHAP.  XIX.

 

              Of the Dissolution of Government.

 

        Sec. 211.  HE that will with any clearness speak of the dissolution of

government, ought in the first place to distinguish between the

dissolution of the society and the dissolution of the government.  That

which makes the community, and brings men out of the loose state of

nature, into one politic society, is the agreement which every one has

with the rest to incorporate, and act as one body, and so be one distinct

common-wealth.  The usual, and almost only way whereby this union is

dissolved, is the inroad of foreign force making a conquest upon them:

for in that case, (not being able to maintain and support themselves, as

one intire and independent body) the union belonging to that body which

consisted therein, must necessarily cease, and so every one return to the

state he was in before, with a liberty to shift for himself, and provide

for his own safety, as he thinks fit, in some other society.  Whenever

the society is dissolved, it is certain the government of that society

cannot remain.  Thus conquerors swords often cut up governments by the

roots, and mangle societies to pieces, separating the subdued or

scattered multitude from the protection of, and dependence on, that

society which ought to have preserved them from violence.  The world is

too well instructed in, and too forward to allow of, this way of

dissolving of governments, to need any more to be said of it; and there

wants not much argument to prove, that where the society is dissolved,

the government cannot remain; that being as impossible, as for the frame

of an house to subsist when the materials of it are scattered and

dissipated by a whirl-wind, or jumbled into a confused heap by an

earthquake.

        Sec. 212.  Besides this over-turning from without, governments are

dissolved from within,        First, When the legislative is altered.  Civil

society being a state of peace, amongst those who are of it, from whom

the state of war is excluded by the umpirage, which they have provided in

their legislative, for the ending all differences that may arise amongst

any of them, it is in their legislative, that the members of a

commonwealth are united, and combined together into one coherent living

body.  This is the soul that gives form, life, and unity, to the

common-wealth: from hence the several members have their mutual

influence, sympathy, and connexion: and therefore, when the legislative

is broken, or dissolved, dissolution and death follows: for the essence

and union of the society consisting in having one will, the legislative,

when once established by the majority, has the declaring, and as it were

keeping of that will.  The constitution of the legislative is the first

and fundamental act of society, whereby provision is made for the

continuation of their union, under the direction of persons, and bonds of

laws, made by persons authorized thereunto, by the consent and

appointment of the people, without which no one man, or number of men,

amongst them, can have authority of making laws that shall be binding to

the rest.  When any one, or more, shall take upon them to make laws, whom

the people have not appointed so to do, they make laws without authority,

which the people are not therefore bound to obey; by which means they

come again to be out of subjection, and may constitute to themselves a

new legislative, as they think best, being in full liberty to resist the

force of those, who without authority would impose any thing upon them.

Every one is at the disposure of his own will, when those who had, by the

delegation of the society, the declaring of the public will, are excluded

from it, and others usurp the place, who have no such authority or

delegation.

        Sec. 213.  This being usually brought about by such in the

commonwealth who misuse the power they have; it is hard to consider it

aright, and know at whose door to lay it, without knowing the form of

government in which it happens.  Let us suppose then the legislative

placed in the concurrence of three distinct persons.

        1.  A single hereditary person, having the constant, supreme,

executive power, and with it the power of convoking and dissolving the

other two within certain periods of time.

        2.  An assembly of hereditary nobility.

        3.  An assembly of representatives chosen, pro tempore, by the

people.  Such a form of government supposed, it is evident,

        Sec. 214.  First, That when such a single person, or prince, sets up

his own arbitrary will in place of the laws, which are the will of the

society, declared by the legislative, then the legislative is changed:

for that being in effect the legislative, whose rules and laws are put in

execution, and required to be obeyed; when other laws are set up, and

other rules pretended, and inforced, than what the legislative,

constituted by the society, have enacted, it is plain that the

legislative is changed.  Whoever introduces new laws, not being thereunto

authorized by the fundamental appointment of the society, or subverts the

old, disowns and overturns the power by which they were made, and so sets

up a new legislative.

        Sec. 215.  Secondly, When the prince hinders the legislative from

assembling in its due time, or from acting freely, pursuant to those ends

for which it was constituted, the legislative is altered: for it is not a

certain number of men, no, nor their meeting, unless they have also

freedom of debating, and leisure of perfecting, what is for the good of

the society, wherein the legislative consists: when these are taken away

or altered, so as to deprive the society of the due exercise of their

power, the legislative is truly altered; for it is not names that

constitute governments, but the use and exercise of those powers that

were intended to accompany them; so that he, who takes away the freedom,

or hinders the acting of the legislative in its due seasons, in effect

takes away the legislative, and puts an end to the government,

        Sec. 216.  Thirdly, When, by the arbitrary power of the prince, the

electors, or ways of election, are altered, without the consent, and

contrary to the common interest of the people, there also the legislative

is altered: for, if others than those whom the society hath authorized

thereunto, do chuse, or in another way than what the society hath

prescribed, those chosen are not the legislative appointed by the people.

        Sec. 217.  Fourthly, The delivery also of the people into the

subjection of a foreign power, either by the prince, or by the

legislative, is certainly a change of the legislative, and so a

dissolution of the government: for the end why people entered into

society being to be preserved one intire, free, independent society, to

be governed by its own laws; this is lost, whenever they are given up

into the power of another.

        Sec. 218.  Why, in such a constitution as this, the dissolution of the

government in these cases is to be imputed to the prince, is evident;

because he, having the force, treasure and offices of the state to

employ, and often persuading himself, or being flattered by others, that

as supreme magistrate he is uncapable of controul; he alone is in a

condition to make great advances toward such changes, under pretence of

lawful authority, and has it in his hands to terrify or suppress

opposers, as factious, seditious, and enemies to the government: whereas

no other part of the legislative, or people, is capable by themselves to

attempt any alteration of the legislative, without open and visible

rebellion, apt enough to be taken notice of, which, when it prevails,

produces effects very little different from foreign conquest.  Besides,

the prince in such a form of government, having the power of dissolving

the other parts of the legislative, and thereby rendering them private

persons, they can never in opposition to him, or without his concurrence,

alter the legislative by a law, his conse power, neglects and abandons

that charge, so that the laws already made can no longer be put in

execution.  This is demonstratively to reduce all to anarchy, and so

effectually to dissolve the government: for laws not being made for

themselves, but to be, by their execution, the bonds of the society, to

keep every part of the body politic in its due place and function; when

that totally ceases, the government visibly ceases, and the people become

a confused multitude, without order or connexion.  Where there is no

longer the administration of justice, for the securing of men's rights,

nor any remaining power within the community to direct the force, or

provide for the necessities of the public, there certainly is no

government left.  Where the laws cannot be executed, it is all one as if

there were no laws; and a government without laws is, I suppose, a

mystery in politics, unconceivable to human capacity, and inconsistent

with human society.

        Sec. 220.  In these and the like cases, when the government is

dissolved, the people are at liberty to provide for themselves, by

erecting a new legislative, differing from the other, by the change of

persons, or form, or both, as they shall find it most for their safety

and good: for the society can never, by the fault of another, lose the

native and original right it has to preserve itself, which can only be

done by a settled legislative, and a fair and impartial execution of the

laws made by it.  But the state of mankind is not so miserable that they

are not capable of using this remedy, till it be too late to look for

any.  To tell people they may provide for themselves, by erecting a new

legislative, when by oppression, artifice, or being delivered over to a

foreign power, their old one is gone, is only to tell them, they may

expect relief when it is too late, and the evil is past cure.  This is in

effect no more than to bid them first be slaves, and then to take care of

their liberty; and when their chains are on, tell them, they may act like

freemen.  This, if barely so, is rather mockery than relief; and men can

never be secure from tyranny, if there be no means to escape it till they

are perfectly under it: and therefore it is, that they have not only a

right to get out of it, but to prevent it.

        Sec. 221.  There is therefore, secondly, another way whereby

governments are dissolved, and that is, when the legislative, or the

prince, either of them, act contrary to their trust.

  First, The legislative acts against the trust reposed in them, when

they endeavour to invade the property of the subject, and to make

themselves, or any part of the community, masters, or arbitrary disposers

of the lives, liberties, or fortunes of the people.

        Sec. 222.  The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation

of their property; and the end why they chuse and authorize a

legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards

and fences to the properties of all the members of the society, to limit

the power, and moderate the dominion, of every part and member of the

society: for since it can never be supposed to be the will of the

society, that the legislative should have a power to destroy that which

every one designs to secure, by entering into society, and for which the

people submitted themselves to legislators of their own making; whenever

the legislators endeavour to take away, and destroy the property of the

people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put

themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon

absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge,

which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence.

Whensoever therefore the legislative shall transgress this fundamental

rule of society; and either by ambition, fear, folly or corruption,

endeavour to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an

absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people; by

this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into their

hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the people, who have

a right to resume their original liberty, and, by the establishment of a

new legislative, (such as they shall think fit) provide for their own

safety and security, which is the end for which they are in society.

What I have said here, concerning the legislative in general, holds true

also concerning the supreme executor, who having a double trust put in

him, both to have a part in the legislative, and the supreme execution of

the law, acts against both, when he goes about to set up his own

arbitrary will as the law of the society.  He acts also contrary to his

trust, when he either employs the force, treasure, and offices of the

society, to corrupt the representatives, and gain them to his purposes;

or openly preengages the electors, and prescribes to their choice, such,

whom he has, by sollicitations, threats, promises, or otherwise, won to

his designs; and employs them to bring in such, who have promised

before-hand what to vote, and what to enact.  Thus to regulate candidates

and electors, and new-model the ways of election, what is it but to cut

up the government by the roots, and poison the very fountain of public

security? for the people having reserved to themselves the choice of

their representatives, as the fence to their properties, could do it for

no other end, but that they might always be freely chosen, and so chosen,

freely act, and advise, as the necessity of the common-wealth, and the

public good should, upon examination, and mature debate, be judged to

require.  This, those who give their votes before they hear the debate,

and have weighed the reasons on all sides, are not capable of doing.  To

prepare such an assembly as this, and endeavour to set up the declared

abettors of his own will, for the true representatives of the people, and

the law-makers of the society, is certainly as great a breach of trust,

and as perfect a declaration of a design to subvert the government, as is

possible to be met with.  To which, if one shall add rewards and

punishments visibly employed to the same end, and all the arts of

perverted law made use of, to take off and destroy all that stand in the

way of such a design, and will not comply and consent to betray the

liberties of their country, it will be past doubt what is doing.  What

power they ought to have in the society, who thus employ it contrary to

the trust went along with it in its first institution, is easy to

determine; and one cannot but see, that he, who has once attempted any

such thing as this, cannot any longer be trusted.

        Sec. 223.  To this perhaps it will be said, that the people being

ignorant, and always discontented, to lay the foundation of government in

the unsteady opinion and uncertain humour of the people, is to expose it

to certain ruin; and no government will be able long to subsist, if the

people may set up a new legislative, whenever they take offence at the

old one.  To this I answer, Quite the contrary.  People are not so easily

got out of their old forms, as some are apt to suggest.  They are hardly

to be prevailed with to amend the acknowledged faults in the frame they

have been accustomed to.  And if there be any original defects, or

adventitious ones introduced by time, or corruption; it is not an easy

thing to get them changed, even when all the world sees there is an

opportunity for it.  This slowness and aversion in the people to quit

their old constitutions, has, in the many revolutions which have been

seen in this kingdom, in this and former ages, still kept us to, or,

after some interval of fruitless attempts, still brought us back again to

our old legislative of king, lords and commons: and whatever provocations

have made the crown be taken from some of our princes heads, they never

carried the people so far as to place it in another line.

        Sec. 224.  But it will be said, this hypothesis lays a ferment for

frequent rebellion.  To which I answer,

        First, No more than any other hypothesis: for when the people are made

miserable, and find themselves exposed to the ill usage of arbitrary

power, cry up their governors, as much as you will, for sons of Jupiter;

let them be sacred and divine, descended, or authorized from heaven; give

them out for whom or what you please, the same will happen.  The people

generally ill treated, and contrary to right, will be ready upon any

occasion to ease themselves of a burden that sits heavy upon them.  They

will wish, and seek for the opportunity, which in the change, weakness

and accidents of human affairs, seldom delays long to offer itself.  He

must have lived but a little while in the world, who has not seen

examples of this in his time; and he must have read very little, who

cannot produce examples of it in all sorts of governments in the world.

        Sec. 225.  Secondly, I answer, such revolutions happen not upon every

little mismanagement in public affairs.  Great mistakes in the ruling

part, many wrong and inconvenient laws, and all the slips of human

frailty, will be born by the people without mutiny or murmur.  But if a

long train of abuses, prevarications and artifices, all tending the same

way, make the design visible to the people, and they cannot but feel what

they lie under, and see whither they are going; it is not to be wondered,

that they should then rouze themselves, and endeavour to put the rule

into such hands which may secure to them the ends for which government

was at first erected; and without which, ancient names, and specious

forms, are so far from being better, that they are much worse, than the

state of nature, or pure anarchy; the inconveniencies being all as great

and as near, but the remedy farther off and more difficult.

        Sec. 226.  Thirdly, I answer, that this doctrine of a power in the

people of providing for their safety a-new, by a new legislative, when

their legislators have acted contrary to their trust, by invading their

property, is the best fence against rebellion, and the probablest means

to hinder it: for rebellion being an opposition, not to persons, but

authority, which is founded only in the constitutions and laws of the

government; those, whoever they be, who by force break through, and by

force justify their violation of them, are truly and properly rebels: for

when men, by entering into society and civil-government, have excluded

force, and introduced laws for the preservation of property, peace, and

unity amongst themselves, those who set up force again in opposition to

the laws, do rebellare, that is, bring back again the state of war, and

are properly rebels: which they who are in power, (by the pretence they

have to authority, the temptation of force they have in their hands, and

the flattery of those about them) being likeliest to do; the properest

way to prevent the evil, is to shew them the danger and injustice of it,

who are under the greatest temptation to run into it.

        Sec. 227.  In both the fore-mentioned cases, when either the

legislative is changed, or the legislators act contrary to the end for

which they were constituted; those who are guilty are guilty of

rebellion: for if any one by force takes away the established legislative

of any society, and the laws by them made, pursuant to their trust, he

thereby takes away the umpirage, which every one had consented to, for a

peaceable decision of all their controversies, and a bar to the state of

war amongst them.  They, who remove, or change the legislative, take away

this decisive power, which no body can have, but by the appointment and

consent of the people; and so destroying the authority which the people

did, and no body else can set up, and introducing a power which the

people hath not authorized, they actually introduce a state of war, which

is that of force without authority: and thus, by removing the legislative

established by the society, (in whose decisions the people acquiesced and

united, as to that of their own will) they untie the knot, and expose the

people a-new to the state of war, And if those, who by force take away

the legislative, are rebels, the legislators themselves, as has been

shewn, can be no less esteemed so; when they, who were set up for the

protection, and preservation of the people, their liberties and

properties, shall by force invade and endeavour to take them away; and so

they putting themselves into a state of war with those who made them the

protectors and guardians of their peace, are properly, and with the

greatest aggravation, rebellantes, rebels.

        Sec. 228.  But if they, who say it lays a foundation for rebellion,

mean that it may occasion civil wars, or intestine broils, to tell the

people they are absolved from obedience when illegal attempts are made

upon their liberties or properties, and may oppose the unlawful violence

of those who were their magistrates, when they invade their properties

contrary to the trust put in them; and that therefore this doctrine is

not to be allowed, being so destructive to the peace of the world: they

may as well say, upon the same ground, that honest men may not oppose

robbers or pirates, because this may occasion disorder or bloodshed.  If

any mischief come in such cases, it is not to be charged upon him who

defends his own right, but on him that invades his neighbours.  If the

innocent honest man must quietly quit all he has, for peace sake, to him

who will lay violent hands upon it, I desire it may be considered, what a

kind of peace there will be in the world, which consists only in violence

and rapine; and which is to be maintained only for the benefit of robbers

and oppressors.  VVho would not think it an admirable peace betwix the

mighty and the mean, when the lamb, without resistance, yielded his

throat to be torn by the imperious wolf? Polyphemus's den gives us a

perfect pattern of such a peace, and such a government, wherein Ulysses

and his companions had nothing to do, but quietly to suffer themselves to

be devoured.  And no doubt Ulysses, who was a prudent man, preached up

passive obedience, and exhorted them to a quiet submission, by

representing to them of what concernment peace was to mankind; and by

shewing the inconveniences might happen, if they should offer to resist

Polyphemus, who had now the power over them.

        Sec. 229.  The end of government is the good of mankind; and which is

best for mankind, that the people should be always exposed to the

boundless will of tyranny, or that the rulers should be sometimes liable

to be opposed, when they grow exorbitant in the use of their power, and

employ it for the destruction, and not the preservation of the properties

of their people?

        Sec. 230.  Nor let any one say, that mischief can arise from hence, as

often as it shall please a busy head, or turbulent spirit, to desire the

alteration of the government.  It is true, such men may stir, whenever

they please; but it will be only to their own just ruin and perdition:

for till the mischief be grown general, and the ill designs of the rulers

become visible, or their attempts sensible to the greater part, the

people, who are more disposed to suffer than right themselves by

resistance, are not apt to stir.  The examples of particular injustice,

or oppression of here and there an unfortunate man, moves them not.  But

if they universally have a persuation, grounded upon manifest evidence,

that designs are carrying on against their liberties, and the general

course and tendency of things cannot but give them strong suspicions of

the evil intention of their governors, who is to be blamed for it? Who

can help it, if they, who might avoid it, bring themselves into this

suspicion? Are the people to be blamed, if they have the sense of

rational creatures, and can think of things no otherwise than as they

find and feel them? And is it not rather their fault, who put things into

such a posture, that they would not have them thought to be as they are?

I grant, that the pride, ambition, and turbulency of private men have

sometimes caused great disorders in commonwealths, and factions have been

fatal to states and kingdoms.  But whether the mischief hath oftener

begun in the peoples wantonness, and a desire to cast off the lawful

authority of their rulers, or in the rulers insolence, and endeavours to

get and exercise an arbitrary power over their people; whether

oppression, or disobedience, gave the first rise to the disorder, I leave

it to impartial history to determine.  This I am sure, whoever, either

ruler or subject, by force goes about to invade the rights of either

prince or people, and lays the foundation for overturning the

constitution and frame of any just government, is highly guilty of the

greatest crime, I think, a man is capable of, being to answer for all

those mischiefs of blood, rapine, and desolation, which the breaking to

pieces of governments bring on a country.  And he who does it, is justly

to be esteemed the common enemy and pest of mankind, and is to be treated

accordingly.

        Sec. 231.  That subjects or foreigners, attempting by force on the

properties of any people, may be resisted with force, is agreed on all

hands.  But that magistrates, doing the same thing, may be resisted, hath

of late been denied: as if those who had the greatest privileges and

advantages by the law, had thereby a power to break those laws, by which

alone they were set in a better place than their brethren: whereas their

offence is thereby the greater, both as being ungrateful for the greater

share they have by the law, and breaking also that trust, which is put

into their hands by their brethren.

        Sec. 232.  Whosoever uses force without right, as every one does in

society, who does it without law, puts himself into a state of war with

those against whom he so uses it; and in that state all former ties are

cancelled, all other rights cease, and every one has a right to defend

himself, and to resist the aggressor.  This is so evident, that Barclay

himself, that great assertor of the power and sacredness of kings, is

forced to confess, That it is lawful for the people, in some cases, to

resist their king; and that too in a chapter, wherein he pretends to

shew, that the divine law shuts up the people from all manner of

rebellion.  Whereby it is evident, even by his own doctrine, that, since

they may in some cases resist, all resisting of princes is not

rebellion.  His words are these.  Quod siquis dicat, Ergone populus

tyrannicae crudelitati & furori jugulum semper praebebit? Ergone

multitude civitates suas fame, ferro, & flamma vastari, seque, conjuges,

& liberos fortunae ludibrio & tyranni libidini exponi, inque omnia vitae

pericula omnesque miserias & molestias a rege deduci patientur? Num illis

quod omni animantium generi est a natura tributum, denegari debet, ut sc.

vim vi repellant, seseq; ab injuria, tueantur? Huic breviter responsum

sit, Populo universo negari defensionem, quae juris naturalis est, neque

ultionem quae praeter naturam est adversus regem concedi debere.

Quapropter si rex non in singulares tantum personas aliquot privatum

odium exerceat, sed corpus etiam reipublicae, cujus ipse caput est, i.e.

totum populum, vel insignem aliquam ejus partem immani & intoleranda

saevitia seu tyrannide divexet; populo, quidem hoc casu resistendi ac

tuendi se ab injuria potestas competit, sed tuendi se tantum, non enim in

principem invadendi: & restituendae injuriae illatae, non recedendi a

debita reverentia propter acceptam injuriam.  Praesentem denique impetum

propulsandi non vim praeteritam ulciscenti jus habet.  Horum enim alterum

a natura est, ut vitam scilicet corpusque tueamur.  Alterum vero contra

naturam, ut inferior de superiori supplicium sumat.  Quod itaque populus

malum, antequam factum sit, impedire potest, ne fiat, id postquam factum

est, in regem authorem sceleris vindicare non potest: populus igitur hoc

amplius quam privatus quispiam habet: quod huic, vel ipsis adversariis

judicibus, excepto Buchanano, nullum nisi in patientia remedium

superest.  Cum ille si intolerabilis tyrannus est (modicum enim ferre

omnino debet) resistere cum reverentia possit, Barclay contra Monarchom.

1. iii. c. 8.        In English thus:

        Sec. 233.  But if any one should ask, Must the people then always lay

themselves open to the cruelty and rage of tyranny? Must they see their

cities pillaged, and laid in ashes, their wives and children exposed to

the tyrant's lust and fury, and themselves and families reduced by their

king to ruin, and all the miseries of want and oppression, and yet sit

still? Must men alone be debarred the common privilege of opposing force

with force, which nature allows so freely to all other creatures for

their preservation from injury? I answer: Self-defence is a part of the

law of nature; nor can it be denied the community, even against the king

himself: but to revenge themselves upon him, must by no means be allowed

them; it being not agreeable to that law.  Wherefore if the king shall

shew an hatred, not only to some particular persons, but sets himself

against the body of the common-wealth, whereof he is the head, and shall,

with intolerable ill usage, cruelly tyrannize over the whole, or a

considerable part of the people, in this case the people have a right to

resist and defend themselves from injury: but it must be with this

caution, that they only defend themselves, but do not attack their

prince: they may repair the damages received, but must not for any

provocation exceed the bounds of due reverence and respect.  They may

repulse the present attempt, but must not revenge past violences: for it

is natural for us to defend life and limb, but that an inferior should

punish a superior, is against nature.  The mischief which is designed

them, the people may prevent before it be done; but when it is done, they

must not revenge it on the king, though author of the villany.  This

therefore is the privilege of the people in general, above what any

private person hath; that particular men are allowed by our adversaries

themselves (Buchanan only excepted) to have no other remedy but patience;

but the body of the people may with respect resist intolerable tyranny;

for when it is but moderate, they ought to endure it.

        Sec. 234.  Thus far that great advocate of monarchical power allows of

resistance.

        Sec. 235.  It is true, he has annexed two limitations to it, to no

purpose:        First, He says, it must be with reverence.

        Secondly, It must be without retribution, or punishment; and the

reason he gives is, because an inferior cannot punish a superior.

First, How to resist force without striking again, or how to strike with

reverence, will need some skill to make intelligible.  He that shall

oppose an assault only with a shield to receive the blows, or in any more

respectful posture, without a sword in his hand, to abate the confidence

and force of the assailant, will quickly be at an end of his resistance,

and will find such a defence serve only to draw on himself the worse

usage.  This is as ridiculous a way of resisting, as juvenal thought it

of fighting; ubi tu pulsas, ego vapulo tantum.  And the success of the

combat will be unavoidably the same he there describes it:

 

        ----- Libertas pauperis haec est:

        Pulsatus rogat, & pugnis concisus, adorat,

        Ut liceat paucis cum dentibus inde reverti.

 

This will always be the event of such an imaginary resistance, where men

may not strike again.  He therefore who may resist, must be allowed to

strike.  And then let our author, or any body else, join a knock on the

head, or a cut on the face, with as much reverence and respect as he

thinks fit.  He that can reconcile blows and reverence, may, for aught I

know, desire for his pains, a civil, respectful cudgeling where-ever he

can meet with it.

        Secondly, As to his second, An inferior cannot punish a superior; that

is true, generally speaking, whilst he is his superior.  But to resist

force with force, being the state of war that levels the parties, cancels

all former relation of reverence, respect, and superiority: and then the

odds that remains, is, that he, who opposes the unjust agressor, has this

superiority over him, that he has a right, when he prevails, to punish

the offender, both for the breach of the peace, and all the evils that

followed upon it.  Barclay therefore, in another place, more coherently

to himself, denies it to be lawful to resist a king in any case.  But he

there assigns two cases, whereby a king may un-king himself.  His words

are,

  Quid ergo, nulline casus incidere possunt quibus populo sese erigere

atque in regem impotentius dominantem arma capere & invadere jure suo

suaque authoritate liceat? Nulli certe quamdiu rex manet.  Semper enim ex

divinis id obstat, Regem honorificato; & qui potestati resistit, Dei

ordinationi resisit: non alias igitur in eum populo potestas est quam si

id committat propter quod ipso jure rex esse desinat.  Tunc enim se ipse

principatu exuit atque in privatis constituit liber: hoc modo populus &

superior efficitur, reverso ad eum sc.  jure illo quod ante regem

inauguratum in interregno habuit.  At sunt paucorum generum commissa

ejusmodi quae hunc effectum pariunt.  At ego cum plurima animo

perlustrem, duo tantum invenio, duos, inquam, casus quibus rex ipso facto

ex rege non regem se facit & omni honore & dignitate regali atque in

subditos potestate destituit; quorum etiam meminit Winzerus.  Horum unus

est, Si regnum disperdat, quemadmodum de Nerone fertur, quod is nempe

senatum populumque Romanum, atque adeo urbem ipsam ferro flammaque

vastare, ac novas sibi sedes quaerere decrevisset.  Et de Caligula, quod

palam denunciarit se neque civem neque principem senatui amplius fore,

inque animo habuerit interempto utriusque ordinis electissimo quoque

Alexandriam commigrare, ac ut populum uno ictu interimeret, unam ei

cervicem optavit.  Talia cum rex aliquis meditator & molitur serio, omnem

regnandi curam & animum ilico abjicit, ac proinde imperium in subditos

amittit, ut dominus servi pro derelicto habiti dominium.

        Sec. 236.  Alter casus est, Si rex in alicujus clientelam se contulit,

ac regnum quod liberum a majoribus & populo traditum accepit, alienae

ditioni mancipavit.  Nam tunc quamvis forte non ea mente id agit populo

plane ut incommodet: tamen quia quod praecipuum est regiae dignitatis

amifit, ut summus scilicet in regno secundum Deum sit, & solo Deo

inferior, atque populum etiam totum ignorantem vel invitum, cujus

libertatem sartam & tectam conservare debuit, in alterius gentis ditionem

& potestatem dedidit; hac velut quadam regni ab alienatione effecit, ut

nec quod ipse in regno imperium habuit retineat, nec in eum cui collatum

voluit, juris quicquam transferat; atque ita eo facto liberum jam & suae

potestatis populum relinquit, cujus rei exemplum unum annales Scotici

suppeditant.  Barclay contra Monarchom. 1. iii. c. 16.  Which in English

runs thus:

        Sec. 237.  What then, can there no case happen wherein the people may

of right, and by their own authority, help themselves, take arms, and set

upon their king, imperiously domineering over them? None at all, whilst

he remains a king.  Honour the king, and he that resists the power,

resists the ordinance of God; are divine oracles that will never permit

it, The people therefore can never come by a power over him, unless he

does something that makes him cease to be a king: for then he divests

himself of his crown and dignity, and returns to the state of a private

man, and the people become free and superior, the power which they had in

the interregnum, before they crowned him king, devolving to them again.

But there are but few miscarriages which bring the matter to this state.

After considering it well on all sides, I can find but two.  Two cases

there are, I say, whereby a king, ipso facto, becomes no king, and loses

all power and regal authority over his people; which are also taken

notice of by Winzerus.

  The first is, If he endeavour to overturn the government, that is, if

he have a purpose and design to ruin the kingdom and commonwealth, as it

is recorded of Nero, that he resolved to cut off the senate and people of

Rome, lay the city waste with fire and sword, and then remove to some

other place.  And of Caligula, that he openly declared, that he would be

no longer a head to the people or senate, and that he had it in his

thoughts to cut off the worthiest men of both ranks, and then retire to

Alexandria: and he wisht that the people had but one neck, that he might

dispatch them all at a blow, Such designs as these, when any king

harbours in his thoughts, and seriously promotes, he immediately gives up

all care and thought of the common-wealth; and consequently forfeits the

power of governing his subjects, as a master does the dominion over his

slaves whom he hath abandoned.

        Sec. 238.  The other case is, When a king makes himself the dependent

of another, and subjects his kingdom which his ancestors left him, and

the people put free into his hands, to the dominion of another: for

however perhaps it may not be his intention to prejudice the people; yet

because he has hereby lost the principal part of regal dignity, viz.  to

be next and immediately under God, supreme in his kingdom; and also

because he betrayed or forced his people, whose liberty he ought to have

carefully preserved, into the power and dominion of a foreign nation.  By

this, as it were, alienation of his kingdom, he himself loses the power

he had in it before, without transferring any the least right to those on

whom he would have bestowed it; and so by this act sets the people free,

and leaves them at their own disposal.  One example of this is to be

found in the Scotch Annals.

        Sec. 239.  In these cases Barclay, the great champion of absolute

monarchy, is forced to allow, that a king may be resisted, and ceases to

be a king.  That is, in short, not to multiply cases, in whatsoever he

has no authority, there he is no king, and may be resisted: for

wheresoever the authority ceases, the king ceases too, and becomes like

other men who have no authority.  And these two cases he instances in,

differ little from those above mentioned, to be destructive to

governments, only that he has omitted the principle from which his

doctrine flows: and that is, the breach of trust, in not preserving the

form of government agreed on, and in not intending the end of government

itself, which is the public good and preservation of property.  When a

king has dethroned himself, and put himself in a state of war with his

people, what shall hinder them from prosecuting him who is no king, as

they would any other man, who has put himself into a state of war with

them, Barclay, and those of his opinion, would do well to tell us.  This

farther I desire may be taken notice of out of Barclay, that he says, The

mischief that is designed them, the people may prevent before it be

clone: whereby he allows resistance when tyranny is but in design.  Such

designs as these (says he) when any king harbours in his thoughts and

seriously promotes, he immediately gives up all care and thought of the

common-wealth; so that, according to him, the neglect of the public good

is to be taken as an evidence of such design, or at least for a

sufficient cause of resistance.  And the reason of all, he gives in these

words, Because he betrayed or forced his people, whose liberty he ought

carefully to have preserved.  What he adds, into the power and dominion

of a foreign nation, signifies nothing, the fault and forfeiture lying in

the loss of their liberty, which he ought to have preserved, and not in

any distinction of the persons to whose dominion they were subjected.

The peoples right is equally invaded, and their liberty lost, whether

they are made slaves to any of their own, or a foreign nation; and in

this lies the injury, and against this only have they the right of

defence.  And there are instances to be found in all countries, which

shew, that it is not the change of nations in the persons of their

governors, but the change of government, that gives the offence.  Bilson,

a bishop of our church, and a great stickler for the power and

prerogative of princes, does, if I mistake not, in his treatise of

Christian subjection, acknowledge, that princes may forfeit their power,

and their title to the obedience of their subjects; and if there needed

authority in a case where reason is so plain, I could send my reader to

Bracton, Fortescue, and the author of the Mirrour, and others, writers

that cannot be suspected to be ignorant of our government, or enemies to

it.  But I thought Hooker alone might be enough to satisfy those men, who

relying on him for their ecclesiastical polity, are by a strange fate

carried to deny those principles upon which he builds it.  Whether they

are herein made the tools of cunninger workmen, to pull down their own

fabric, they were best look.  This I am sure, their civil policy is so

new, so dangerous, and so destructive to both rulers and people, that as

former ages never could bear the broaching of it; so it may be hoped,

those to come, redeemed from the impositions of these Egyptian

under-task-masters, will abhor the memory of such servile flatterers,

who, whilst it seemed to serve their turn, resolved all government into

absolute tyranny, and would have all men born to, what their mean souls

fitted them for, slavery.

        Sec. 240.  Here, it is like, the common question will be made, Who

shall be judge, whether the prince or legislative act contrary to their

trust? This, perhaps, ill-affected and factious men may spread amongst

the people, when the prince only makes use of his due prerogative.  To

this I reply, The people shall be judge; for who shall be judge whether

his trustee or deputy acts well, and according to the trust reposed in

him, but he who deputes him, and must, by having deputed him, have still

a power to discard him, when he fails in his trust? If this be reasonable

in particular cases of private men, why should it be otherwise in that of

the greatest moment, where the welfare of millions is concerned, and also

where the evil, if not prevented, is greater, and the redress very

difficult, dear, and dangerous?

        Sec. 241.  But farther, this question, (Who shall be judge?) cannot

mean, that there is no judge at all: for where there is no judicature on

earth, to decide controversies amongst men, God in heaven is judge.  He

alone, it is true, is judge of the right.  But every man is judge for

himself, as in all other cases, so in this, whether another hath put

himself into a state of war with him, and whether he should appeal to the

Supreme Judge, as leptha did.

        Sec. 242.  If a controversy arise betwixt a prince and some of the

people, in a matter where the law is silent, or doubtful, and the thing

be of great consequence, I should think the proper umpire, in such a

case, should be the body of the people: for in cases where the prince

hath a trust reposed in him, and is dispensed from the common ordinary

rules of the law; there, if any men find themselves aggrieved, and think

the prince acts contrary to, or beyond that trust, who so proper to judge

as the body of the people, (who, at first, lodged that trust in him) how

far they meant it should extend? But if the prince, or whoever they be in

the administration, decline that way of determination, the appeal then

lies no where but to heaven; force between either persons, who have no

known superior on earth, or which permits no appeal to a judge on earth,

being properly a state of war, wherein the appeal lies only to heaven;

and in that state the injured party must judge for himself, when he will

think fit to make use of that appeal, and put himself upon it.

        Sec. 243.  To conclude, The power that every individual gave the

society, when he entered into it, can never revert to the individuals

again, as long as the society lasts, but will always remain in the

community; because without this there can be no community, no

common-wealth, which is contrary to the original agreement: so also when

the society hath placed the legislative in any assembly of men, to

continue in them and their successors, with direction and authority for

providing such successors, the legislative can never revert to the people

whilst that government lasts; because having provided a legislative with

power to continue for ever, they have given up their political power to

the legislative, and cannot resume it.  But if they have set limits to

the duration of their legislative, and made this supreme power in any

person, or assembly, only temporary; or else, when by the miscarriages of

those in authority, it is forfeited; upon the forfeiture, or at the

determination of the time set, it reverts to the society, and the people

have a right to act as supreme, and continue the legislative in

themselves; or erect a new form, or under the old form place it in new

hands, as they think good.

 

 

F I N I S.

 

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