 Book 2, Chapter 2, of Two Treatises of Civil Government. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Two Treatises of Civil Government by John Locke. Book 2, Chapter 2, on the State of Nature. 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. 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, quote, 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 in the same nature. To have anything 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 show greater measure of love to me than they have by me showed 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 themward fully the like affection, from which relation of equality between ourselves and them that are as ourselves, what several rules and cannons natural reason hath drawn for direction of life no man is ignorant. Unquote Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book One But though this be a state of liberty yet it is not a state of license, though man in that state have an uncontrollable 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 everyone 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 man 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 ours. Everyone as he is bound to preserve himself and not to quit his station willfully, 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 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 anyone in the state of nature may punish another for any evil he has done, everyone 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 everyone must needs have a right to do 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 what 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 tie which is to secure him 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 anyone 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 this case and upon this ground every man hath a right to punish the offender and be executioner of the law of nature I 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 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 every other man 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 hath suffered from these two distinct rights the one of punishing the crime for restraint and preventing the like offence which right of punishing is in everybody 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 demnified 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 everybody 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 tiger 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 who so shedeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed and Cain was so fully convinced that everyone had a right to destroy such a criminal that after the murder of his brother he cries out everyone that findeth me shall slay me so plain was it writ in the hearts of all mankind 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 offense that can be committed in the state of nature may in the state of nature be also punished equally and 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 country which are only so far right as they are founded on the law of nature by which they are to be regulated and interpreted to this strange doctrine, namely that in the state of nature everyone 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 certainly grant that civil government is the proper remedy for the inconveniences 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 be endured I desire to know what kind of government that is and how much better it is than the state of nature where one man commanding a multitude has the liberty to be judged in his own case and may do to all his subjects whatever he pleases without the least liberty to anyone to question or control those who execute his pleasure and in whatsoever he doth whether led by reason, mistake, or passion must be submitted to 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 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, etc. between the two men in the desert island mentioned by Garcilaso 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 to those that say there never were any men in the state of nature I will not only oppose the authority of the judicious hooker of the laws of ecclesiastical polity book one section 10 where he says quote the laws which have been hitherto mentioned that is 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 for as much as we are not by ourselves sufficient to furnish ourselves with competence 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 unquote 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 end of chapter 2 book 2 chapter 3 of two treatises of civil government this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are on the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org two treatises of civil government by John Locke book 2 chapter 3 of the state of war 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 anyone that joins with him in his defense 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 an 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 common law 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 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 nobody 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 that is, 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 anyone in that state must necessarily be supposed to have a design to take away everything 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 everything else and so be looked on as in a state of war 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 pretense 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 everything else and therefore it is lawful for me to treat him as one who has put himself into a state of war with me that is 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 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, goodwill, 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 belief 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 though 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 defense 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 a force without right upon a man's person makes a state of war both where there is and is not a common judge 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 bare-faced resting of the laws to protect or indemnify the violence or injuries of some men or party of men there it is hard to imagine anything 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 colored with the name pretenses or forms of law the underwear of being to protect and redress the innocent by an unbiased 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 write them they are left to the only remedy in such cases an appeal to heaven 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 judged this day between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon judges 11 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 everyone 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 myself can only be the judge in my own conscience as I will answer it at the great day to the supreme judge of all men end of chapter 3 book 2 chapter 4 of two treatises of civil government this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org two treatises of civil government by John Locke book 2 chapter 4 of slavery 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 everyone 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 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 anyone nor put himself under the absolute arbitrary power of another to take away his life when he pleases nobody 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 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 Exodus 21 End of Chapter 4 Book 2, Chapter 5 of Two Treatises of Civil Government This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are on the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Two Treatises of Civil Government by John Locke Book 2, Chapter 5 of Property Whether we consider natural reason which tells us that men, being once born have a right to their preservation and consequently to meet 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 Psalms 115-16 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 anyone should ever come to have a property in anything 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 endeavor to show 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 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 though 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 nobody has originally a private dominion exclusive of the rest of mankind in any of them as they are thus in a 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 that is 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 though the earth and all inferior creatures be common to all men yet every man has a property in his own person this nobody has any right to but himself the labor 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 labor 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 labor something annexed to it that excludes the common right of other men for this labor being the unquestionable property of the labor 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 he that is nourished by the acorns he picked up under an oak or the apples he gathered from the trees in the wood hath certainly appropriated them to himself nobody can deny but the nourishment is his I ask then when did they begin to be his when he digested or when he ate 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 labor 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 anyone 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 not withstanding 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 anybody the labor that was mine removing them out of that common state they were in hath fixed my property in them by making an explicit consent of every commoner necessary to anyone'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 everyone his peculiar part though the water running in the fountain be everyone's yet who can doubt but that in the picture is his only who drew it out his labor 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 thus this law of reason makes the deer that Indians who hath killed it it is allowed to be his goods who hath bestowed his labor upon it though before it was the common right of everyone 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 and what was before common still takes place and by virtue thereof what fish anyone catches in the ocean that great and still remaining common of mankind or what amber grease anyone takes up here is by the labor 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 anyone 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 labor 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 it will perhaps be objected to this that if gathering the acorns or other fruits of the earth etc makes a right to them then anyone may engross 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 first Timothy 612 is the voice of reason confirmed by inspiration but how far has he given it us to enjoy as much as anyone can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils so much he may by his labor fix a property in whatever is beyond this is more than his share 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 have smaller part of that provision the industry of one man could extend itself and engross 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 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 till's plants improves cultivates and can use the product of so much is his property he by his labor does as it were enclose it from the common nor will it invalidate his right to say everybody else has an equal title to it and therefore he cannot appropriate he cannot enclose 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 labor and the penury of his condition required it of him God and his reason commanded him to subdue the earth that is improve it for the benefit of life and therein lay out something upon it that was his own his labor 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 nor was this appropriation of any parcel of land by improving it any prejudice to any other man since there was still enough and his 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 and he that leaves as much as another can make use of does as good as take nothing at all nobody could think himself injured by the drinking of another man though he took a good draft who had a whole river of the same water left to quench his thirst and the case of land and water where there is enough of both is perfectly the same God gave the world to men in common but since he gave it to them for their benefit and the greatest means 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 labor 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 labor 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 labor 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 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 in commerce no one can enclose or appropriate any part without the consent of all his fellow commoners because this is left common by compact that is 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 labor that was his property which could not be taken from him wherever 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 labor and materials to work on necessarily introduces private possessions the measure of property nature has well set by the extent of men's labor and the conveniences of life no man's labor 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 entrench upon the right of another or acquire to himself a property to the prejudice of his neighbor 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 anybody in the first ages of the world when men were more endangered to be lost by wandering from their company in the vast wilderness of the earth than to be straightened for want of room to plant in and the same measure may be allowed still without prejudice to anybody 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 spaces 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 encroachment 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 labor that I've heard it affirmed that in Spain itself a man may be permitted to plow, 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 wasteland 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 namely that every man should have as much as he could make use of would hold still in the world without straightening anybody 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 buy and buy show more at large 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 labor each one to 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 labor 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 enclosed and cultivated land are to speak within much 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 encloses land and has a greater plenty of the conveniences of life from ten acres than he could have from an hundred left in nature may truly be said to give ninety acres to mankind for his labor 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 conveniences of life as ten acres of equally fertile land do in Devonshire where they are so 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 employed 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 labor on them did thereby acquire a property in them but if they perished in his possession without their due use if the fruits rotted or the venison putrefied before he could spend it he offended against the common law of nature and was liable to be punished he invaded his neighbor's share for he had no right farther than his use called for any of them and they might serve to afford him conveniences of life 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, not withstanding its 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 able sheep to feed on a few acres would serve for both their possessions but as families increased and industry enlarged their stocks their possessions enlarged with the need of them and 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 neighbors 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 people 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 once it was 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 Genesis 13.5 separated and enlarged their pasture where it best liked them and for the same reason Esau went from his father and his brother and planted in Mount Seer Genesis 36.6 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 anyone'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 labor 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 nor is it so strange as perhaps before consideration it may appear that the property of labor should be able to overbalance the community of land for it is labor indeed that puts the difference of value on everything and let anyone 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 labor 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 labor nay, if we will rightly estimate things as they come to our use and cast up the several expenses about them what in them is purely owing to nature and what to labor we shall find that in most of them ninety nine hundredths are wholly to be put on the account of labor there cannot be a clearer demonstration of anything 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 that is a fruitful soil apt to produce an abundance what might serve for food, raiment, and delight yet for want of improving it by labor have not one hundredth part of the conveniences we enjoy and a king of a large and fruitful territory there feeds, lodges, and is clad worse than a day laborer in England to make this a little clearer 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 not withstanding acorns, water, and leaves, or skins must be our bread, drink, and clothing did not labor 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 labor 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 anyone hath computed he will then see how much labor makes the far greater 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 pastureage, 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 shows how much the 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 neighbors but this by the by to return to the argument in hand 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 five pound and from the other possibly not worth a penny if all the profit in Indian received from it were to be valued and sold here at least I may truly say not one thousand it is labor then which puts the greatest part of value upon land without which it would scarcely be worth anything it is to that we owe the greatest part of all its useful products for all the straw brand bread and that acre of wheat is worth more than the product of an acre of as good land which lies waste is all the effect of labor for it is not barely the plowman's pains the reapers and threshers toil and the baker's sweat is to be counted into the bread we eat the labor of those who broke the oxen who digged and wrought the iron and stones who felled and framed the timber employed about the plow, mill, oven, or any other utensils which are a vast number requisite to this corn from its being seed to be sown to its being made bread must all be charged on the account of labor 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 catalog 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 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 labor 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 conveniences of life was perfectly his own and did not belong in common to others thus labor in the beginning gave a right of property wherever anyone 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 labor and industry began and the leagues that have been made between several states and kingdoms whether expressly or tacitly disowning all claim and rights to the land in the other's possession have by common consent given up their pretenses 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 tracks 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 though this can scarce happen amongst that part of mankind that have consented to the use of money 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 doth 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 everyone had a right as hath been said to as much as he could use and property in all that he could affect with his labor 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 anybody else so that it perished not uselessly 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 uselessly in his hands again if he would give his nuts for a piece of metal pleased with its color 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 possessions but the perishing of anything uselessly in it 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 and as different degrees of industry were apt to give men possessions in different proportions so this invention of money gave them 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 a hundred families but there were sheep, horses and cows with other useful animals, wholesome 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 anyone 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 the 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 a 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 conveniences of life to be had there for him and his family thus in the beginning all the world was America and more so than that is now for no such thing as money was anywhere known find out something that hath the use and value of money amongst his neighbors you shall see the same man will begin presently to enlarge his possessions 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 labor 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 an exchange for the overplus, gold, and silver which may be hoarded up without injury to anyone 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 and thus I think it is very easy to conceive without any difficulty how labor 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 be no reason of quarreling 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 labor upon so he had no temptation to labor for more than he could make use of this left no room for controversy about the title nor for any 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 end of chapter 5 it may perhaps be centered as an impertinent criticism in a discourse of this nature to find fault with words and names that have attained 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 had 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 everywhere joins them together without distinction when it commands the obedience of children honor thy father and thy mother Exodus 2012 whosoever curseth his father or his mother Leviticus 29 ye shall fear every man his mother and his father Leviticus 19.3 children obey your parents etc Ephesians 6.1 is the style of the old and new testament 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 sounded but oddly and in the very name shown 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 though I have said above chapter 2 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 respect 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 those natural freedom without being subjected to the will or authority of any other man 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 are wrapped up in and supported by in the weakness of their infancy age and reason as they grow up loosen them till the length they drop quite off and leave a man at his own free disposal 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 the supply that defects of this imperfect state till the improvement of growth and age have 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 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 nobody 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 father than is for the general good of those under that law could they be happier without it the law as a useless thing would of itself vanish and that ill deserves the name of confinement which hedges is 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 liberty for every man to do what he lists for who could be free when every other man's humor might domineer over him but 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 the power then that parents have over their children arises from that duty which is incumbent on them to take care of their offspring during the imperfect state of childhood to inform the mind and govern the actions of their yet ignorant non-age 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 thereon too 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 when it comes to the estate that made his father a freeman the son is a freeman too 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 compares of that law I answer a state of maturity wherein he might be supposed capable to know that law 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 somebody else must guide him who is presumed to know how far the law allows 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 had 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 had attained to a state of freedom and as an understanding be fit to take the government of his will but after that the father and son are equally free as much as a tutor and pupil after knowledge equally subjects of the same law together without any dominion left in the father over the life, liberty or a state 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 but if through defects that may happen out of the ordinary cause of nature anyone comes not to such a degree of reason where any 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's never let loose through 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 incapable of that charge and so lunatics and idiots are never set free from the government of their parents children who are not as yet come on to those years where they may have and innocence which are excluded by a natural defect from ever having thirdly mad man which for the present cannot possibly have the use of right reason to guide themselves have for their guide the reason that guided other man which are tutors over them to seek and procure their good for them says Hooker of the laws of ecclesiastical polity book 1 section 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 of proof of parents' regal authority 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 two 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 had it of its 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 contendous hermonarchy by right of fatherhood cannot miss this difference and this covenant 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 a 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 anyone think that this restrained 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 knowledge this government over him only prepared him the better and sooner for it if anybody 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 of the laws of ecclesiastical polity book one section six a man may be said to have attained so far forth the use of reason as suffice it 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 anyone by skill and learning to determine commonwealths themselves take notice of and allow that there is a time when men are to begin to act like freemen 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 the freedom then of men 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 theirs 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 he should need to be under it but what reason can hence advance this care of the parents due to their offspring into an absolute arbitrary dominion of the father whose power reaches no father than by such discipline as he finds most effectual to give such strength and health to their bodies such vigor 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 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 preferably 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 bear act of begetting give a man over his issue if all his care ends there and this be all that title he had 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 has more than one husband at a time in the 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 everywhere owe the same obedience to their mother during their minority as to their father were he alive and will anyone say that the mother had the legislative power over her children she can make standing rules which shall be of perpetual obligation by which they ought to regulate all the concerns their property and bound their liberty all the course of their lives or can she enforce the observation of them with capital punishments for this is the proper power of the magistrate of which the father had not so much as the shadow his command over his children is but temporary and reaches not their life or property but a help to the weakness and a perfection of their knowledge 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 theirs nor to their liberty neither when they are once arrived to the enfranchisement of the years of discretion the father's empire then seizes 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 a license from divine authority to leave father and mother and cleave to his wife but though there be a time when a child comes to be as free from the subjection to the will and command of his father the will of anybody 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 yet laid on them an obligation to nourish, preserve and bring up their offspring so he is laid on the children a perpetual obligation of honouring their parents which containing in it an inward esteem and reverence to be shown by all outward expressions ties up the child from anything 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 relief, assistance and comfort of those by whose means he entered into being and has been made capable of any enjoyment 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 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 lessons not his authority nor subjects him to her government 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 effect, 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 that is that which the father had 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 offspring 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 bias of nature drawn the other way and therefore God Almighty when he would express his gentle dealings with the Israelites he tells them that though he chastened them he chastened them as a man chastened his son the Tyronomy 8.5 that is with tenderness and affection and kept them under no severe 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 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 the proper privilege of the parents this is intended for the parents advantage as the other is for the child 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 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 the first part then of paternal power or rather duty of his education belongs so to the father that it terminates at a certain season when the business of education is over it seizes of itself and is also alienable before for a man they 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 is 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 a state liberty, limbs and life the power of commanding ends with knowledge 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 proscribe to his sons in all things not very inconvenient to him and his family to pay a deference to it a man may owe honour and respect to an ancient or wise man defence to his child or friend relieve 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 anyone 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 expense which is often employed upon one child more than another this shows 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 due to theirs and can therefore contain not any part or degree of that kind of dominion which a prince or magistrate has over his subject though the obligation on the parents to bring up their children and the obligation on the 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 though it be common to him with other men yet the occasions of showing it 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 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 have comported with his will and humour this is no small tie on the obedience of children and there being always a next 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 the father could oblige his posterity to that government which he himself was a subject and that his compact helped them whereas it being only a necessary condition and next 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 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 and next to such a possession by this power indeed fathers oblige their children to obedience themselves even when they are past minority and most commonly to 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 enforce and recompense such a compliance and is no more power than what a French man has over an Englishman who by the hopes of an estate he will leave him will certainly have a strong tie on his obedience and if one of this left him he will enjoy it he must certainly take it upon the conditions and next to the possession of land in that country where it lies whether it be France or England to conclude then though the father's power of commanding extends no father than the minority of his children and to a degree only fit for the discipline and government of that age and though that honour and respect and all that which the Latins called piety which they indispensably owe to their parents all their lifetime and in all estates all that support and defence is due to them gives the father no power of governing that is 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 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 have 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 nobody doubts but if a stranger whom chance or business has 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 otherwise 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 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 man who fitted to rule them their little properties and less covetousness their controversies and when any should arise where could they have a fitter empire 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 disposes of themselves and fortunes when they could have no desire to be out of their pupillage the government they had been under during it continued still to be more their protection than restrained and they could nowhere find a greater security to their peace, liberty and fortunes than in the rule of a father thus the natural fathers of families by an insensible change became the politic monarchs of them too and as they chance 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 manners according as chance contrivance or occasions happened to mold 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 the effecto the exercise of government I say if this argument be good it will as strongly prove that all princes may 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 household End of book 2 chapter 6