1. It having been shown in
the foregoing discourse: - An Essay Concerning Certain False Principles.
Firstly. That Adam had not, either by natural
right of fatherhood or by positive donation from G-d, any such authority over
his children, nor dominion over the world, as is pretended.
Secondly. That if he had, his heirs yet had no
right to it.
Thirdly. That if his heirs had, there being no
law of Nature nor positive law of G-d 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.
Fourthly. 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 promises 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.
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 another, and show the difference betwixt a
ruler of a commonwealth, a father of a family, and a captain of a galley.
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 commonwealth
from foreign injury, and all this only for the public good.
4. To understand political power aright, and
derive it from its original, we must consider what estate 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.
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 weak, being of one and 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 canons natural
reason hath drawn for direction of life no man is ignorant." (Eccl. Pol. i.)*
* Richard Hooker, The Laws of Ecclesiastical
Polity.
6. But though this be a state of liberty, yet
it is not a state of licence; 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 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 authorise us to destroy one another, as
if we were made for one another's uses, as the inferior ranks of creatures are
for ours. 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 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.
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 nobody 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.
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 G-d has set to the actions of men for their mutual security, and so
he becomes dangerous to mankind; the tie 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 this case, and upon this ground,
every man hath a right to punish the offender, and be executioner of the law of
Nature.
9. 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 legislature, 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.
10. Besides the crime which consists in
violating the laws, 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, and some
person or other, 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 hath 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.
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 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 hath 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 everybody,
and also to secure men from the attempts of a criminal who, having renounced
reason, the common rule and measure G-d 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 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, "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.
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 beside 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 truly so 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.
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, 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 G-d hath certainly appointed government to
restrain the partiality and violence of men. I easily 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 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 judge in his own case, and may do to all his subjects
whatever he pleases without the least question or control of those who execute
his pleasure? and in whatsoever he doth, whether led by reason, mistake, or
passion, must be submitted to? which men in the state of Nature are not bound to
do one to 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.
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 never 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 Soldania, in 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.
15. To those that say there were never any men
in the state of Nature, I will not oppose the authority of the judicious Hooker
(Eccl. Pol. i. 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 for as much 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 uniting
themselves as 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.
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 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 they 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 a
beast of prey, those dangerous and noxious creatures that will be sure to
destroy him whenever he falls into their power.
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 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- 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 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.
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 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- 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.
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, 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 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, 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 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.
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 subject to the judge; 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 G-d 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 judge in my
own conscience, as I will answer it at the great day to the Supreme Judge of all
men.
21. 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: "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 that rule prescribes not, 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.
22. 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. 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.
23. 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. 21.).
24. 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 G-d made of the world to Adam, and to Noah and his sons,
it is very clear that G-d, as King David says (Psalm 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 any one 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 G-d
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 G-d gave the world to Adam and his heirs in succession,
exclusive of all the rest of his posterity; but I shall endeavour to show how
men might come to have a property in several parts of that which G-d gave to
mankind in common, and that without any express compact of all the commoners.
25. G-d, 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 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 men. 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.
26. 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 "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 it, 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 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.
27. 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. 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 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 G-d 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 labour that was mine, removing them out of that
common state they were in, hath fixed my property in them.
28. 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.
29. 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 civilised 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 amber-gris 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.
30. 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 any one 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. "G-d has given us all things richly." 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 labour fix a property in. Whatever is beyond
this is more than his share, and belongs to others. Nothing was made by G-d 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 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.
31. 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, 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. G-d, 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. G-d 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 G-d, 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.
32. 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. Nobody 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.
33. G-d 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 G-d 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.
34. It is true, in land that is common in
England or any other country, where there are plenty of people under government
who have money and commerce, no one can enclose 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
propriety 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. G-d commanded, and his wants forced him
to labour. 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 G-d, 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
introduce private possessions.
35. The measure of property Nature well set,
by the extent of men's labour and the conveniency 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 entrench 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. Which 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 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.
36. The same measure may be allowed still,
without prejudice to anybody, 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 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 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 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
by and by show more at large.
37. This is certain, that in the beginning,
before the desire of having more than men 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 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.
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 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 putrefied 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.
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
enlarged their stocks, their possessions enlarged 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 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 Seir (Gen. 36. 6).
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.
40. Nor is it so strange as, perhaps, before
consideration, it may appear, that the property of labour should be able to
overbalance the community of land, for it is labour indeed that puts the
difference of value on everything; 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 expenses 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.
41. 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- 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.
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 clothing, 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.
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 one in a year is worth five pounds, and 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 anything; 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 ploughman'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 sowing 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, dyeing-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.
44. From all which it is evident, that though
the things of Nature are given in common, 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 conveniences of life, was perfectly his own, and did not
belong in common to others.
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 expressly or tacitly disowning all claim and right to the land in the
other's 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
of the world; 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; though this can
scarce happen amongst that part of mankind that have consented to the use of
money.
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 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, every one
hath a right (as hath been said) to as much as he could use; and had a property
in all 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 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 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 anything uselessly in it.
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.
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 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 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 something 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 conveniences of
life, to be had there for him and his family.
49. 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
neighbours, you shall see the same man will begin presently to enlarge his
possessions.
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 the consent of men have agreed to a disproportionate
and unequal possession of the earth- I mean out of the bounds of society and
compact; for in governments the laws regulate it; they having, by consent, found
out and agreed in a way how a man may, rightfully and without injury, possess
more than he himself can make use of by receiving gold and silver, which may
continue long in a man's possession without decaying for the overplus, and
agreeing those metals should have a value.
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.
52. IT may perhaps be
censured 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 has
an equal title, which 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 G-d
everywhere joins them together without distinction, when it commands the
obedience of children: "Honour thy father and thy mother" (Exod. 20.
12); "Whosoever curseth his father or his mother" (Lev. 20. 9);
"Ye shall fear every man his mother and his father" (Lev. 19. 3);
"Children, obey your parents" (Eph. 6. 1), etc., is the style of the
Old and New Testament.
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
sounded but oddly, and in the very name shown the absurdity, if this supposed
absolute power over children had been called parental, and thereby 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.
54. Though I have said above (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 respects, may have made it due; and yet all
this consists with the equality which all men are 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.
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 are 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.
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 instance of his being to provide for his own support and
preservation, and govern his actions according to the dictates of the law of
reason G-d 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 had 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.
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 nobody can be under a law that 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 a 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; and 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 freely 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.
58. 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 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 G-d 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 no 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 free man, the son is a free man too.
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, an estate 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, somebody 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 twenty-one, 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 this 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.
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 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 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., s. 7). All which
seems no more than that duty which G-d 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.
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
it, are so consistent and so distinguishable that the most blinded contenders
for monarchy, "by right of fatherhood," cannot miss of it; the most
obstinate cannot but allow of it. 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 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 (Eccl. Pol., lib. i., s. 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."
62. Commonwealths 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.
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
theirs. This is that which puts the authority into the parents' hands to govern
the minority of their children. G-d 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.
64. 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 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.
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 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? And 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 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, and enforce 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 theirs, nor to their liberty neither when they are once arrived to the
enfranchisement of the years of discretion. The father's empire then ceases, and
he can from thenceforward 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 licence from Divine authority to
"leave father and mother and cleave to his wife."
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 he
himself is free from subjection to the will of anybody else, and they are both
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 G-d and Nature, to pay
his parents, G-d 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
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 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 on his throne owes his mother,
and yet this lessens not his authority nor subjects him to her government.
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, to more or less, as the father's
care, cost, and kindness in his education has been more or less, and this ends
not with minority, but holds in all parts and conditions of a man's life. The
want of distinguishing these two powers 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 G-d 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 drawing the other way.
And therefore G-d 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. 8. 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.
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?
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 nevertheless 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 sceptre 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.
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
of making laws to any one over him from whom they are owing. And it is plain all
this is due, not 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, is often employed upon one child more than
another.
71. 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, and 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 theirs,
and can therefore contain not any part or degree of that kind of dominion which
a prince or magistrate has over his subject.
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, though it be
common to him with other men, yet the occasions of showing it, almost constantly
happening to fathers in their private families and in 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.
73. This is no small tie to 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, that his compact held them; whereas, it being
only a necessary condition annexed to the land 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
commonwealth 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 enforce and recompense
such a compliance, and is no more power than what a Frenchman 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 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.
74. To conclude, then, though 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 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, with
all that support and defence, is due to them, gives the father no power of
governing- i.e., making laws and exacting penalties on his children; though by
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 and 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 when
they were grown up, 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, be in the father, where it seemed, without any change, barely to
continue. And 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 nobody 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 act,
he might condemn and put him to death, or otherwise have punished him as well as
any of his children. which 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 arch-philosopher was of, That the chief person in every
household was always, as it were, a king; so when numbers of households joined
themselves in civil societies together, kings were the first kind of governors
among 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 regimen that has been received
in the world. The inconveniencies of one kind have caused sundry others to be
devised, so that, in a word, all public regimen, 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 regimen." Hooker, Eccl. Pol., i. 10.
75. Thus it was easy and almost natural for
children, by a tacit and almost natural 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 was 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 nowhere find a greater
security to their peace, liberties, and fortunes than in the rule of a father.
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 manors, according as chance, contrivance, or occasions
happened to mould them. But if princes have their titles in the father's 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 household."
77. G-D, 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.
78. Conjugal society is made by a voluntary
compact between man and woman, and though 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 offspring, who have a right to be nourished and maintained by
them till they are able to provide for themselves.
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 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
vivaporous 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 offspring 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 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 wings and provide for themselves.
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 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 choose new mates. Wherein one cannot
but admire the wisdom of the great Creator, who, having given to man an ability
to lay up for the future as well as 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.
81. But though these are ties upon mankind
which make the conjugal bonds more firm and lasting in a man than the other
species of animals, yet it would give one reason to inquire 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.
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
true possession of what by contract is her peculiar right, and at least gives
the husband no more power over her than she has over his life; 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.
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 doth 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 these
countries where the husband is allowed no such absolute authority. But the ends
of matrimony requiring no such power in the husband, it was not at all necessary
to it. The condition of conjugal society put it not in him; but whatsoever might
consist with procreation and support of the children till they could shift for
themselves- mutual assistance, comfort, and maintenance- might be varied and
regulated by that contract which first united them in that society, nothing
being necessary to any society that is not necessary to the ends for which it is
made.
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
anything of it; and I think it is plain that it is far different from a politic
society.
85. Master and servant are names as old as
history, but given to those of far different condition; for a free man 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 servant 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.
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, with what resemblance soever
it may have in its order, offices, and number too, with a little commonwealth,
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.
87. Man being born, as has been proved, with a
title to perfect freedom and an uncontrolled 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, and by understanding
indifferent rules and men authorised by the community for their execution,
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 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 showed it, the perfect state of Nature.
88. And thus the commonwealth comes by a power
to set down what punishment shall belong to the several transgressions 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 entered into
society has 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 up a right to the commonwealth to employ his force for
the execution of the judgments of the commonwealth whenever he shall be called
to it, which, indeed, are his own judgements, 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 commonwealth; and also 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.
89. Wherever, therefore, any number of men so
unite 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 wherever 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 authorises 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
commonwealth, 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
wherever 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.
90. And hence it is evident that absolute
monarchy, which by some men is counted for the only government in the world, is
indeed inconsistent with civil society, and so can be not form of civil
government at all. For the end of civil society being to avoid and remedy those
inconveniences 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.* Wherever any persons
are who have not such an authority to appeal to, and decide 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 showed which may necessarily enforce that the
law of reason or of G-d doth enjoin the contrary." Hooker, Eccl. Pol., i.
16.
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 whence relief and redress may be expected of any
injury or inconveniency that may be suffered from him, or by his order. So that
such a man, however entitled, Czar, or Grand Signior, or how you please, is as
much in the state of Nature, with all under his dominion, as he is with the rest
of mankind. For wherever 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 woeful 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, according to the best of his
power to maintain it; but 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 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 government public, and by yielding
themselves subject thereunto, that unto whom they granted authority to rule and
govern, 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, ibid. 10.
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 to the contrary. He that
would have been insolent and injurious in the woods of America would not
probably be much better on 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.
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 a power to do more
hurt and wrong, it is right when he does it. To ask how you may be guarded from
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 polecats or foxes, but are content, nay, think it safety, to be
devoured by lions.
94. But, whatever flatterers may talk to amuse
people's understandings, it never hinders men from feeling; and when they
perceive that any man, in what station soever, is out of the bounds of the civil
society 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 showed 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 to
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 legislative was so 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 dependants. 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.*(2)
* "At the first, when some certain kind
of regimen was once appointed, it may be that nothing was then further 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 beforehand, and know the
penalties of transgressing them." Hooker, Eccl. Pol. i. 10.
*(2) "Civil law, being the act of the
whole body politic, doth therefore overrule each several part of the same
body." Hooker, ibid.
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,
which is done 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.
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 one body, must 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
empowered to act by positive laws where no number is set by that positive law
which empowers 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.
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, who may submit himself and consent to any acts of it if he thinks fit.
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 anything to be
the act of the whole, which, considering the infirmities of health and
avocations of business, which in a number though much less than that of a
commonwealth, will necessarily keep many away from the public assembly; and the
variety of opinions and contrariety of interests which unavoidably happen in all
collections of men, it is next impossible ever to be had. And, therefore, if
coming into society be upon such terms, it will be only like Cato's coming into
the theatre, tantum ut exiret. 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.
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 expressly 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 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.
100. To this I find two objections made: 1.
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. 2. 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.
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 inconveniencies
of that condition, and the love and want of society, no sooner brought any
number of them together, but they presently united and in corporated 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 embodied in armies. Government is
everywhere 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 anything of it, they are beholding 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 G-d 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.
102. He must show 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" (lib. i. cap. 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 away not 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.
103. And I hope those who went away from
Sparta, with Palantus, mentioned by Justin, 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 least an argument from what has been to what
should of right be of 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.
104. But, to conclude: reason being plain on
our side that men are naturally free; and the examples of history showing 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.
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 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 incapable, they pass
him by, and set up the stoutest and bravest man for their ruler.
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.
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 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 inconveniencies 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 where there
was but very little property, and wanted not variety of rulers and abundance of
officers to direct and look after their execution where there were but few
trespassers and few offenders. Since, then, those who liked 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 choose 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.
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, though the war itself, which admits not of pluralities of governors,
naturally evolves the command into the king's sole authority.
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 at the heads of their forces) appears plainly in the story of Jephtha. The
Ammonites making war upon Israel, the Gileadites, in fear, send to Jephtha, 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"
(Judges 11. 11), which was, as it seems, all one as to be judge. "And he
judged Israel" (Judges 12. 7)- that is, was their captain-general-
"six years." So when Jotham 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 for, and delivered you
out of the hands of Midian" (Judges 9. 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" (1 Sam. 8. 20), G-d, 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" (ch. 9. 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" (ch. 10. 1). And
therefore those who, after Saul being solemnly chosen and saluted king by the
tribes at Mispah, were unwilling to have him their king, make no other objection
but this, "How shall this man save us?" (ch. 10. 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 G-d 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" (ch. 13.
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 leddest 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."
110. Thus, whether a family, by degrees, grew
up into a commonwealth, 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, united 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. It was given them for the public good and
safety, and to those ends, in the infancies of commonwealths, they commonly used
it; and unless they had done so, young societies could not have subsisted.
Without such nursing fathers, without this care of the governors, all
governments would have sunk under the weakness and infirmities of their infancy,
the prince and the people had soon perished together.
111. But the golden age (though 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
government.* 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 entrusted in another's hands, only for
their own good, they found was made use of to hurt them.
* "At the first, when some certain kind
of regimen was once approved, it may be that nothing was then further 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 beforehand, and know the
penalties of transgressing them." Hooker, Eccl. Pol. 1. 10.
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
choose 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
jure 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 show 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.:
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 anybody, upon this supposition, can
show me any one man, in any age of the world, free to begin a lawful monarchy, I
will be bound to show 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 show us which that is, which, when they have done, I doubt not
but all mankind will easily agree to pay obedience to him.
114. Though it be a sufficient answer to their
objection to show 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.
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 but only one universal monarchy if men had not been at
liberty to separate themselves from their families and their 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.
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 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 anybody else. He may, indeed, annex
such conditions to the land he enjoyed, as a subject of any commonwealth, 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.
117. And this has generally given the occasion
to the 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 commonweal. And thus the
consent of free men, 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.
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 Englishwoman 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
whoever was judged as a traitor 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 nor government. He is
under his father's tuition and authority till he come to age of discretion, and
then he is a free man, 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 being a subject of that 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 anywhere else? Since the power that a father hath
naturally over his children is the same wherever they be born, and the ties of
natural obligations are not bounded by the positive limits of kingdoms and
commonwealths.
119. Every man being, as has been showed,
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. Nobody 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 possession or enjoyment of any part of the dominions of any
government doth hereby 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.
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, annexes 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, and the property of the land, is a subject. By the same
act, therefore, whereby any one unites his person, which was before free, to any
commonwealth, 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 commonwealth as long as it hath a being. Whoever
therefore, from thenceforth, by inheritance, purchases permission, or otherwise
enjoys any part of the land so annexed to, and under the government of that
commonweal, must take it with the condition it is under- that is, of submitting
to the government of the commonwealth, under whose jurisdiction it is, as far
forth as any subject of it.
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 commonwealth, or 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 commonweal, 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.
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; it 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
law extends. But this no more makes a man a member of that society, a perpetual
subject of that commonwealth, 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 denizen, yet do not thereby come to be subjects or members
of that commonwealth. 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 commonwealth.
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 nobody, why will he part with
his freedom, this empire, and subject himself to the dominion and control 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
insecure. This makes him willing to quit this 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.
124. The great and chief end, therefore, of
men 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.
Firstly, 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 biased 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.
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, make them too remiss in
other men's.
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.
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 that 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 authorised 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.
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 viciousness of
degenerate men, there would be no need of any other, no necessity that men
should separate from this great and natural community, and associate into lesser
combinations. 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 political society, and
incorporates into any commonwealth separate from the rest of mankind.
129. The first power- viz., of doing
whatsoever he thought fit 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.
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.
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 commonwealth, 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.
132. THE majority having, as
has been showed, 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 a 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 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
commonwealth.
133. By "commonwealth" I must be
understood all along to mean not a democracy, or any form of government, but any
independent community which the Latins signified by the word civitas, to which
the word which best answers in our language is "commonwealth," and
most properly expresses such a society of men which "community" does
not (for there may be subordinate communities in a government), and
"city" much less. And therefore, to avoid ambiguity, I crave leave to
use the word "commonwealth" in that sense, in which sense I find the
word used by King James himself, which I think to be its genuine signification,
which, if anybody dislike, I consent with him to change it for a better.
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 commonwealth, but sacred
and unalterable in the hands where the community have once placed it. Nor can
any edict of anybody 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 nobody 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
entire 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 G-d, 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, ibid. 10.
"Of this point, therefore, we are to note
that such 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
soever, are available by consent." Hooker, Ibid.
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 commonwealth, 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 it up to the
community. For nobody can transfer to another more power than he has in himself,
and nobody 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 doth, or can
give up to the commonwealth, 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 enforce 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 G-d, 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, expressly or secretly agreed
upon, touching the manner of their union in living together. The latter is that
which we call the law of a commonweal, 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 regimen 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, Eccl. Pol. i. 10.
136. Secondly, the legislative or supreme
authority cannot assume to itself 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 authorised judges. For the law of
Nature being unwritten, and so nowhere 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 aught, 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 punish delinquents. To avoid these
inconveniencies which disorder men's properties 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 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 G-d 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, Eccl. Pol. iii. 9.
"To constrain men to anything
inconvenient doth seem unreasonable." Ibid. i. 10.
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 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 that is exposed to the
arbitrary power of one man who has the command of a hundred thousand than he
that is exposed to the arbitrary power of a hundred thousand single men, nobody
being secure, that his will who has such a command is better than that of other
men, though his force be a hundred thousand times stronger. And, therefore,
whatever form the commonwealth 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 due bounds, and not be tempted by the power they have in
their hands to employ it to purposes, and by such measures as they would not
have known, and own not willingly.
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 theirs, that nobody
hath a right to take them, or any part of them, 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 commonwealth 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, though 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.
139. But government, into whosesoever hands it
is put, being as I have before shown, entrusted 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 commonwealth, 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 sergeant 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 not obeying the most desperate orders, cannot 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
anything, 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.
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?
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 commonwealth, which is by constituting the
legislative, and appointing in whose hands that shall be. And when the people
have said, "We will submit, and be governed by laws made by such men, and
in such forms," nobody else can say other men shall make laws for them; nor
can they be bound by any laws but such as are enacted by those whom they have
chosen and authorised to make laws for them.
142. These are the bounds which the trust that
is put in them by the society and the law of G-d and Nature have set to the
legislative power of every commonwealth, 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 countryman 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: Legislative neither must nor can transfer the power of
making laws to anybody else, or place it anywhere but where the people have.
143. THE legislative power
is that which has a right to direct how the force of the commonwealth shall be
employed for preserving the community and the members of it. 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 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
well-ordered 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.
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.
145. There is another power in every
commonwealth 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
commonwealth the members of it are distinct persons, still, in reference to one
another, and, as such, are 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, so 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.
146. This, therefore, contains the power of
war and peace, leagues and alliances, and all the transactions with all persons
and communities without the commonwealth, and may be called federative if any
one pleases. So the thing be understood, I am indifferent as to the name.
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 itself 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 commonwealth, 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
commonwealth.
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 commonwealth 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.
149. THOUGH in a constituted
commonwealth 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 anybody, 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, whenever 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.
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 every member of the society prescribing rules to their actions, 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.
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 though 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 commonwealth,
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; the members owing no
obedience but to the public will of the society.
152. The executive power placed anywhere 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 commonwealth.
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 mal-administration 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 shown, in a
constituted commonwealth 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
legislative 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.
154. If the legislative, or any part of it, be
of representatives, chosen for that time by the people, which afterwards return
into the ordinary state of subjects, and have no share in the legislative but
upon a new choice, this power of choosing 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.
155. It may be demanded here, what if the
executive power, being possessed of the force of the commonwealth, 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.
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 commonwealth, 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 imminent hazard on one side
or the other, by fixed intervals and periods set to the meeting and acting of
the legislative, but to entrust 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 entrusted 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
show 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.
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 time 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, send 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; though 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.
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 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 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. It is 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 choose 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 proposed to them so to do.
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; nay, 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; it is fit the ruler
should have a power in many cases to mitigate the severity of the law, and
pardon some offenders, since 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.
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 law-making 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 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.
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 or questioning of prerogative
whilst it is in any tolerable degree employed for the use it was meant- that is,
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.
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 suppled 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 declared limitations of prerogative in those 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.
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 anything 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
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 anybody; since nobody 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, such as have set rulers over
themselves, to guard and promote that good; but are to be looked on as a 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.
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 a 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 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.
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, or if any human frailty or mistake (for
princes are but men, made as others) appeared in some small declinations from
that end, yet it was 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
enlarge their prerogative as they pleased, judging rightly that they did nothing
herein to the prejudice of their laws, since they acted conformably to the
foundation and end of all laws- the public good.
166. Such G-d-like princes, indeed, had some
title to arbitrary power by that argument that would prove absolute monarchy the
best government, as that which G-d 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 anybody 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."
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 occasion 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 best subservient to the public good
and best suit the ends of parliament.
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?" I 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 anybody 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, are deprived of their right, or are under the exercise of a power
without right, having no appeal on earth 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 reserved that ultimate determination to themselves which belongs to all
mankind, where there lies no appeal on earth, by a law antecedent and paramount
to all positive laws of men, whether they have just cause to make their appeal
to Heaven. And this judgement 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;
G-d 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 inconvenience is so great that the
majority feel it, and are weary of it, and find a necessity to have it amended.
And 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.
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.
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 free men under that law. The affection and tenderness G-d hath planted
in the breasts 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 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 anybody else, or keep
the child in subjection to the will of his parents when grown to a man and the
perfect use of reason, any farther than as 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, it is 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.
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.
172. Thirdly, despotical power is an absolute,
arbitrary power one man has over another, to take away his life whenever he
pleases; and 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 G-d hath given to be the rule betwixt man and man,
and the peaceable ways which that teaches, and made use of force to compass his
unjust ends upon another where he has no right, he renders himself liable to be
destroyed by his adversary whenever he can, as any other noxious and brutish
creature that is destructive to his being. 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.
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.
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.
175. THOUGH governments can originally have no
other rise than that before mentioned, nor polities be founded on anything 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 a house is from building a new one in
the place. Indeed, it often makes way for a new frame of a commonwealth by
destroying the former; but, without the consent of the people, can never erect a
new one.
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 pirates 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 G-d
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 Jephtha 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.
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 free men 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 show they are sacrifices to their leader's 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 free men and no subjects by
conquest, let that give what dominion it will. And if I or anybody 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.
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.
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 injustice 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
conqueror's 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.
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 swords.
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.
182. But because the miscarriages of the
father are no faults of the children, who 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, and 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 through
infancy or choice, they have done nothing to forfeit them, nor has the conqueror
any right to take them away by the bare right 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, but
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.
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 is come 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 hers. 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.
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 of an extent any way coming near
what I had overrun of his, and equally cultivated too. 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 phantastical 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 disseised, 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 thousand; 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 their 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.
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.
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 inquiry 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., choose 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 anything 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.
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.
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.
189. I 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 free men, 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 lawful
authority, whilst force, and not choice, compels them to submission.
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.
191. By the first of these, a man is naturally
free from subjection to any government, though 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.
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 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 (which
they can never be supposed to do, till either they are put in a full state of
liberty to choose 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 nobody can take away any
part of it without their own consent, without which, men under any government
are not in the state of free men, but are direct slaves under the force of war).
And who doubts but the Grecian Christians, descendants of the ancient possessors
of that country, may justly cast off the Turkish yoke they have so long groaned
under, whenever they have a power to do it?
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 free men, 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.
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 L50 or L500 per annum.
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 but power enough to dissolve them at any time, and all the grants and
promises of men in power are but mockery and collusion. For can there be
anything more ridiculous than to say, I give you and yours 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?
195. I 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 G-d and Nature. Nobody, 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 G-d, but as a drop of the bucket, or a dust on
the balance- inconsiderable, nothing!
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, and 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 be conquered Italy, which is to have their yoke cast off as soon as G-d
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, G-d 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" (II Kings 18. 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 G-d, but 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 till this time.
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.
198. In all lawful governments the designation
of the persons who are to bear rule being as natural and necessary a part as the
form of the government itself, and 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, yet appoint no way to design the
person that shall have the power and be the monarch- all commonwealths,
therefore, with the form of government established, have rules also of
appointing and conveying the right to those who are to have any share in the
public authority; and 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.
199. As usurpation is the
exercise of power which another hath a right to, so tyranny is the exercise of
power beyond right, which nobody 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
entitled, 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.
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, in his speech to the
Parliament, 16O3, 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 G-d 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, pests, both
against them and the commonwealth." Thus, that learned king, who well
understood the notions 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.
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.
202. Wherever 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 empower 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 exceeding the bounds of authority is no more a right in a great than a petty
officer, no more justifiable in a king than a constable. But so much the worse
in him as that he has more trust put in him, is supposed, from the advantage of
education and counsellors, to have better knowledge and less reason to do it,
having already a greater share than the rest of his brethren.
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.
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 G-d
and man; and so no such danger or confusion will follow, as is often suggested.
For-
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 showed 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.
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 authorises 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 empower 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.
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, endanger him or embroil 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 on the highway, when
perhaps I have not 12d. in my pocket. This man I may lawfully kill. To another I
deliver L100 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. 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 might have the benefit of appealing to the law, and have
reparation for my L100 that way.
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
madman or heady malcontent to overturn a well-settled state, the people being as
little apt to follow the one as the other.
209. But if either these illegal acts have
extended to the majority of the people, or if the mischief and oppression has
light 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 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.
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, though 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, and a long train of acting show the counsels 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 a 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?
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
commonwealth. 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 entire 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 a house to subsist when the
materials of it are scattered and displaced by a whirlwind, or jumbled into a
confused heap by an earthquake.
212. Besides this overturning 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 commonwealth; from hence the several members have their mutual
influence, sympathy, and connection; 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 authorised 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 anything 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.
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:- First, 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. Secondly, an assembly
of hereditary nobility. Thirdly, an assembly of representatives chosen, pro
tempore, by the people. Such a form of government supposed, it is evident:
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 enforced 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 authorised, 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.
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.
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 authorised thereunto do
choose, or in another way than what the society hath prescribed, those chosen
are not the legislative appointed by the people.
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 entire, free, independent society to be governed by its own laws,
this is lost whenever they are given up into the power of another.
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 incapable of control; he alone is in a condition to
make great advances towards 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 consent being necessary to give any of their decrees
that sanction. But yet so far as the other parts of the legislative any way
contribute to any attempt upon the government, and do either promote, or not,
what lies in them, hinder such designs, they are guilty, and partake in this,
which is certainly the greatest crime men can be guilty of one towards another.
219. There is one way more whereby such a
government may be dissolved, and that is: When he who has the supreme executive
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 effectively 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 connection. 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 inconceivable to human capacity, and
inconsistent with human society.
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 free men. 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.
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.
For 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.
222. The reason why men enter into society is
the preservation of their property; and the end while they choose and authorise
a legislative is that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and
fences to the properties of all 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 G-d 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 employs the force, treasure, and offices of
the society to corrupt the representatives and gain them to his purposes, when
he openly pre-engages the electors, and prescribes, to their choice, such whom
he has, by solicitation, threats, promises, or otherwise, won to his designs,
and employs them to bring in such who have promised beforehand 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 commonwealth 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 that 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.
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 [that] 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.
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 authorised 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.
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 borne 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
rouse 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.
226. Thirdly: I answer, that this power in the
people of providing for their safety anew 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 probable 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 proper way to prevent
the evil is to show them the danger and injustice of it who are under the
greatest temptation to run into it.
227. In both the forementioned 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 nobody can have but
by the appointment and consent of the people, and so destroying the authority
which the people did, and nobody else can, set up, and introducing a power which
the people hath not authorised, 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 anew to the state of
war. And if those, who by force take away the legislative, are rebels, the
legislators themselves, as has been shown, 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.
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
neighbour's. 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 kind of a 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. Who would not think it an admirable peace betwixt 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.
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 showing [what] inconveniencies might happen if they should offer to resist
Polyphemus, who had now the power over them.
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?
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 persuasion 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 in such a posture that they would not have them
thought 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 people's 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, he is 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.
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.
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 show 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 et furori jugulum semper praebebit? Ergone multitudo
civitates suas fame, ferro, et flamma vastari, seque, conjuges, et liberos
fortunae ludibrio et tyranni libidini exponi, inque omnia vitae pericula
omnesque miserias et molestias a rege deduci patientur? Num illis quod omni
animantium generi est a natura tributum, denegari debet, ut sc. vim vi
repellant, seseque 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 et 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: et restituendae injuriae illatae, non
recedendi a debita reverentia propter acceptum injuriam. Praesentem denique
impetum propulsandi non vim praeteritam ulciscendi jus habet. Horum enim alterum
a natura est, ut vitani 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 tyrannis est
(modicum enim ferre omnino debet) resistere cum reverentia possit."-
Barclay, Contra Monarchomachos, iii. 8.
In English thus:
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 show an hatred, not only to
some particular persons, but sets himself against the body of the commonwealth,
whereof he is the head, and shall, with intolerable ill-usage, cruelly tyrannise
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."
234. Thus far that great advocate of
monarchical power allows of resistance.
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, et
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 anybody 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,
deserve for his pains a civil, respectful cudgelling wherever 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 aggressor 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 unking himself. His words are:
"Quid ergo, nulline casus incidere
possunt quibus populo sese erigere atque in regem impotentius dominantem arma
capere et invadere jure suo suaque authoritate liceat? Nulli certe quamdiu rex
manet. Semper enim ex divinis id obstat, Regem honorificato, et qui potestati
resistit, Dei ordinationi resistit; 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 et
superior efficitur, reverso ad eum scilicet 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 et
omni honore et 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 meditatur et molitur serio, omnem regnandi curam
et animum ilico abjicit, ac proinde imperium in subditos amittit, ut dominus
servi pro derelicto habiti, dominium.
236. "Arlter casus est, si rex in
alicujus clientelam se contulit, ac regnum quod liberum a majoribus et 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 amisit, ut summus scilicet in regno secundum Deum sit, et solo Deo
inferior, atque populum etiam totum ignorantem vel invitum, cujus libertatem
sartam et tectam conservare debuit, in alterius gentis ditionem et potestatem
dedidit; hac velut quadam rengi abalienatione 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 et suae potestatis populum relinquit,
cujus rei exemplum unum annales Scotici suppeditant."- Barclay, Contra
Monarchomachos, I. iii., c. 16.
Which may be thus Englished:
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 G-d,' 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 wished 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 commonwealth, and, consequently, forfeits the power of governing
his subjects, as a master does the dominion over his slaves whom he hath
abandoned.
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 G-d, 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."
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 that he instances 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. 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 "Mirror," 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-taskmasters, 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- slavery.
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?
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, G-d 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 Jephtha
did.
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 such 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 nowhere 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.
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 commonwealth,
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 of
their rulers, 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 place it in a new form, or new hands, as they think
good.