§. 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 them- selves 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 king- doms, either expressly or tacitly disowning all claim and right to the land in the others posses- sion, have, by common consent, given up their Q 226 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
pretences to their natural common right, which originally they had to those countries, and so have, by positive agreement, settled a property amongst themselves, in distinct parts and par- cels of the earth; yet there are still great tracts of ground to be found, which (the inhabitants thereof not having joined with the rest of man- kind, in the consent of the use of their common money) lie tvaste, 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 neces- sity 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 agree- ment hath put the value on, more than real use, and the necessary support of life. Now of those good things which nature hath provided in common, every one had a right (as hath been said) to as much as he could use, and property in all that he could effect with his labour; all that his industry could extend to, to alter from the state nature had put it in, was his. He that gathered a hundred bushels of acorns or apples, had thereby a property in them, they were his goods as soon as gathered. He was only to OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT 227 look, lhat he used them before they spoiled, else he took more than his share, and robbed others. And indeed it was a foolish thing, as well as dishonest, to hoard up more than he could make use of. If he gave away a part to any body else, so that it perished not 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 hand. 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 ex- ceeding of the bounds of his just property not lying in the largeness of his possession, but the perishing of any thing 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 228 Of civil GOVERNMENT.
them: for supposing an island, separate from all possible commerce with the rest of the world, wherein there were but an hundred families, but there were sheep, horses, and cows, with other useful animals, 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 en- large his possessions beyond the use of his family, and a plentiful supply to its consumption, either in what their own industry produced, or they could barter for like perishable, useful commodities with others? Where there is not some thing, both lasting and scarce, and so valuable to be hoarded up, there men will 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 thou- sand, or an hundred thousand acres of excel- lent land, ready cultivated, and well stocked too with cattle, in the middle of the inland parts of America, where he had no hopes of com- merce with other parts of the world, to draw money to him by the sale of the product? It would not be worth the inclosing, and we should see him give up again to the wild common of nature, whatever was more than would supply the conveniencies of life to be had there for him and his family.
§. 49. Thus in the beginning all the world OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 229 was America, and more so than that is now; for no such thing- as money was any where known. Find out something that hath the use and value of money amongst his neighbours, you shall see the same man will begin presently to enlarge his possessions.
§. 50. But since gold and silver, being little useful to the life of men in proportion to food, raiment, and carriage, has its value only from the consent of men, whereof labour yet makesy in great part, the measure, it is plain, that men have agreed to a disproportionate and unequal possession of the earth, they having, by a tacit and voluntary consent, found out a way how a man may fairly possess more land than he him- self can use the product of, by receiving in ex- change for the overplus gold and silver, which may be hoarded up without injury to any one; these metals not spoiling or decaying in the hands of the possessor. This partage of things in an equality of private possessions, men have made practicable out of the bounds of society, and without compact, only by putting a value on gold and silver, and tacitly agreeing in the use of money: for in governments, the laws regu- late the right of property, and the possession of land is determined by positive constitutions.
§. 51. And thus, I think, it is very easy to conceive, without any difficulty, how labour could at first begin a title to property in the common things of nature, and how the spending it upon our uses bounded it, 80 that there 230 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
could then be no reason of quarrelling about title, nor any doubt about the largeness of pos- session 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 incroachment 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.
CHAPTER VI.
Of Paternal Power.
§, 52. It may perhaps be censured as an im- pertinent 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 j)atemal 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 rea- son or revelation, we shall find, she hath an equal title. This may give one reason to ask, whether this might not be more properly called parental power? for whatever obligation nature and the right of generation lays on children, it OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 231 must certainly bind them equal to both the concurrent causes of it. And accordingly we see the positive law of God every where joins them together, without distinction, when it commands the obedience of children, Honour thy father and thy mother, Exod. xx. 12. Whosoever curseth his father or his mother, Lev. xx. 0. Ye shall fear every man his mother and his father, Lev. xix. 3. Children, obey your parents, &c. Eph. vi. 1. is the stile of the Old and New Testament.
§. 53. Had but this one thing been well con- sidered, 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 shewn the absurdity, if this sup- posed absolute power over children had been called parental; and thereby have discovered, that it belonged to the mother too: for it will but very ill serve the turn of those men, who contend so much for the absolute power and authority of the fatherhood, as they call it, that the mother should have any share in it; and it woidd have but ill supported the monarchy they contend for, when by the very name it appeared, that that fundamental authority, 232 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
from whence they would derive their govern- ment 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, Chap. II. That all men by nature are equal, I cannot be supposed to understand all sorts of equality: age or virtue may give men a just precedency: excellency of parts and merit may place others above the common level: birth may subject some, and alliance or benefits others, to pay an observance to those whom nature, gratitude, or other respects, may have made it due: and yet all this consists with the equality, which all men are in, in respect of jurisdiction or domi- nion 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 sub- jected 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.
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 233 §. 56. Adam was created a perfect man, his body and mind in full possession of their strength and reason, and so was capable, from the first instant of his being to provide for his own support and preservation, and govern his actions according to the dictates of the law of reason which God had implanted in him. From him the world is peopled with his descendants, who are all born infants, weak and helpless, without knowledge or understanding: but to supply the defects of this imperfect state, till the improvement of growth and age hath re- moved them, Adam and Eve, and after them all parents were, by the law of nature, tinder 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 pos- terity, the law of reason. But his offspring having another way of entrance into the world, different from him, by a natural birth, that produced them ignorant and without the use of reason, they were not presently under that law; for no body can be under a law, which is not promulgated to him; and by this law being promulgated or made known by reason only, he that is not come to the use of his rea- son, cannot be said to be under this law; and Adam's children, being not presently as soon as 234 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
born under this law of reason, were not pre- se\\t\y free: for law, in its true notion, is not so much the limitation as the direction of a free and intelligent agent to his proper interest, and prescribes no farther than is for the general good of those under that law: could they be happier without it, the law, as an useless thing-, would of itself vanish; and that ill deserves the name of confinement which hedges us in only from bogs and precipices. So that, however it may be mistaken, the end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom: for in all the states of created beings capable of laws, where there is no law, there is no freedom: fox liberty is, to be free from restraint and violence from others; which cannot be, where there is no law: but freedom is not, as we are told, a liberty for every man to do what he lists: (for who could be free, when every other mans humour might domineer over him?) but a liberty to dispose and order as he lists, his person, actions, possessions, and his whole property, within the allowance of those laws under which he is, and therein not to be subject to the arbitrary will of another, but freely follow his own.
§. 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 child- hood. To inform the mind, and govern the actions of their yet ignorant non-age, till reason OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 235 shall take its place, and ease them of that trouble, is what the children want, and the parents are bound to; for God having given man an understanding to direct his actions, has allowed him a freedom of will, and liberty of acting, as properly belonging thereunto, within the bounds of that law he is under. But whilst he is in an estate, wherein he has not understanding of his own to direct his will, he is not to have any ivill 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, a state of maturity wherein he might be supposed capable to know that law, that so he might keep his actions within the bounds of it. When he has acquired that state, he is presumed to know how far that law is to be his guide, and how far he may make use of his freedom, and so comes to have it; till then, 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 loo. Js a man 236 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
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 accord- ing to his own will, within the permission of that law? A capacity of knowing* that law; which is supposed by that law, at the age of one-and-twenty years, and in some cases sooner. If this" made the father free, it shall make the son free too. Till then we see the law allows the son to have no will, but he is to be guided by the will of his father or guar- dian, who is to understand for him. And if the father die, and fail to substitute a deputy in his trust; if he hath not provided a tutor, to govern his son, during his minority, during his want of understanding, the law takes care to do it; some other must govern him, and be a will to him, till he hath attained to a state of freedom, and his understanding be fit to take the govern- ment of his will. But after that, the father and son are equally free as much as pupil and tutor after non-age; 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 conies not to such a degree of reason, wherein he might be supposed capable of knowing the law, and so living within the rules OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 237 of it, he is never capable of being a free man, he is never let loose to the disposure of his own will (because he knows no bounds to it, has not understanding, its proper guide) but is continued under the tuition and government of others, all the time his own understanding is uncapable of that charge. And so lunatics and ideots are never set free from the government of their parents; children, who are not as yet come unto those years whereat they may have; and innocents which are excluded by a natural defect from, ever having; thirdly, madmen, which for the present cannot jwssibly have the use of right reason to guide themselves, have for their guide, the reasoji that guideth other men which are tutors over them, to seek and procure their good for them, says Hooker, Eccl. Pol. lib. i. sect. 7. All which seems no more than that duty, which God and nature has laid on man, as well as other creatures, to preserve their off-spring, 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 exer- cise 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 sameprin- ciple. A child isyreeby his father's title, by his father's understanding, which is to govern him till lie hath it of his own. Thefreedom of a man 238 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
at years of discretion, and the subjection of a child to his parents whilst yet short of that age, are so consistent, and so distinguishable, that the most blinded contenders for monarchy, by right of fatherhood, cannot miss this difference; the most obstinate cannot but allow their con- sistency: for were their doctrine all true, were the right heir of Adam now known, and by that title settled a monarch in his throne, in- vested 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 infor- mation 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 non-age? This government over him only prepared him the better and sooner for it. If any body should ask me, when my son is of age to be free? I shall answer, just when his monarch is of age to govern. Hut at ichat time, says the judicious Hooker, Eccl. Pol. 1. i. sect. G. a man may be said to have attained so far forth the use of OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 23!)
reason, as snfficclh 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 learn- ing to determine.
%. G2. Commonwealths themselves take no- tice of, and allow, that there is a time when men are to begin to act like free men, and there- fore till that time require not oaths of fealty, or allegiance, or other public owning- of, or submission to the government of their countries.
§. 03. 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 un- restrained liberty, before he has reason to guide him, is not the allowing him the privilege of his nature to be free; but to thrust him out amongst brutes, and abandon him to a state as wretched, and as much beneath that of a man, as their's. This is that which puts the autho- rity into the parents hands to govern the minority of their children. God hath made it their business to employ this care on their off- spring, and hath placed in them suitable incli- nations 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 240 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
this care of the parents due to their offspring into an absolute arbitary 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 them- selves 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 in- separably annexed; and it belongs as much to the foster-father of an exposed child, as to the natural father of another. So little power does the bare act of begetting- give a man over his issue; if all his care ends there, and this be all the title he hath to the name and authority of a father. And what will become of this paternal power in that part of the world, where one woman hath more than one husband at a time? or in those parts of America, where, when the husband and wife part, which hap- pens frequently, the children are all left to the mother, follow her, and are wholly under her care and provision? If the father die whilst OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 241 the children are young, do they not naturally every where owe the same obedience to their mother, during their minority, as to their father were he alive? and will any one say, that the mother hath a legislative power over her children? that she can make standing rules, which shall be of perpetual obligation, by which they ought to regulate all the concerns of their property, and bound their liberty all the course of their lives? or can she inforce the observa- tion 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 tempo- rary, and reaches not their life or property: it is but a help to the weakness and imperfection of their non-age, a discipline necessary to their education.: and though a father may dispose of his own possessions as he pleases, when his children are out of danger of perishing for want, yet his power extends not to the lives or goods, which either their own industry, or another's bounty has made their's; nor to their liberty neither, when they are once arrived to the in- franchisement of the years of discretion. The father s empire then ceases, and he can from thence forwards no more dispose of the liberty