§. 83. For all the ends of marriage being to be obtained under politic government, as well as in the state of nature, the civil magis- trate 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 those countries where the husband is allowed no such absolute authority. But the ends of matrimony requiring no such power in the husband, the condition of conjugal society put it not in him, it being not at all necessary to that state. Conjugal society could subsist and attain its ends without it; nay, community of goods, and the power over them, mutual assistance and maintenance, and other things belonging to conjugal society, might be varied and regulated by that contract which unites man and wife in that society, as far as may consist with procreation and the bringing up of children till they could shift for themselves; nothing being necessary to any society, that is not necessary to the ends for which it is made.
§. 84. The society betwixt parents and chil- s 258 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
dren, and the distinct rights and powers be- longing respectively to them, I have treated of so largely in the foregoing chapter, that I shall not here need to say any thing of it. And I think it is plain, that it is far different from a politic society.
§. 85. Master and servant are names as old as history, but given to those of far different condition; for a freeman makes himself a servant to another, by selling him, for a certain time, the service he undertakes to do, in ex- change for wages he is to receive: and though this commonly puts him into the family of his master, and under the ordinary discipline thereof; yet it gives the master but a temporary power over him, and no greater than what is contained in the contract between them. But there is another sort of servants, which by a peculiar name we call slaves, who, being cap- tives 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 ivife, children, servants, and 'slaves, united under the domestic rule of a family; which, what re- OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT 259 semblance soever it may have in its order, offices, and number too, with a little common- wealth, yet is very far from it, both in its consti- tution, 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 & 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 uncon- trouled enjoyment of all the rights and privi- leges 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: 260 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
but to judge of, and punish the breaches of that law in others, as he is persuaded the offence deserves, even with death itself, in crimes where the heinousness of the fact, in his opinion, requires it. But because no political society can be, nor subsist, without having in itself the power to preserve the property, and in order thereunto, punish the offences of all those of that society: there, and there only is political society, where every one of the members hath quitted this natural power, resigned it up into the hands of the community in all cases that exclude him not from appealing for protection to the law established by it. And thus all private judgment of every particular member being excluded, the community comes to be umpire, by settled standing rules, indifferent, and the same to all parties; and by men having authority from the community, for the execution of those rules, decides all the differ- ences 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 hag established: whereby it is easy to discern, who are, and who are not, in political society together. Those who are united into one body, and have a common established law and judicature to appeal to, with authority to decide controversies between them, and punish offenders, are in civil society one with another: but those who have no such OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 201 common people, I mean on earth, are still in the state of nature, each being, where there is no other, judge for himself, and executioner; which is, as I have before shewed it, the perfect stale of nature.
§. 88. And thus the commonwealth comes by a power to set down what punishment shall belong to the several transgressions which they think worthy of it, committed amongst the members of that society, (which is the power of making laws) as well as it has the power to punish any injury done unto any of its mem- bers, by any one that is not of it, (which is the power of war and peace;) and all this for the preservation of the property of all the members of that society, as far as is possible. But though every man who has entered into civil society, and is become a member of any com- monwealth, has thereby quitted his power to punish offences, against the law of nature, in prosecution of his own private judgment, yet with the judgment of offences, which he has given up to the legislative in all cases, where he can appeal to the magistrate, he has given a right to the commonwealth to employ his force, for the execution of the judgments of the commonwealth, whenever he shall be called to it; wrhich indeed are his own judgments, they being made by himself, or his representa- tative. And herein we have the original of the legislative and executive power of civil society, which is to judge by standing laws, how far 262 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
offences are to be punished, when committed within the commonwealth; and also to deter- mine, 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 no need.
§. 89. Wherever therefore any number of men are so united into one society, as to quit every one his executive power of the law of nature, and to resign it to the public, there and there only is a political, or civil society. And this is done, wherever any number of men, in the state of nature, enter into society to make one people, one body politic, under one su- preme government; or else when any one joins himself to, and incorporates with any govern- ment already made: for hereby he authorizes the society, or which is all one, the legislative thereof, to make laws for him, as the public good of the society shall require: to the exe- cution whereof, his own assistance (as to his own decrees) is due. And this puts men out of a state of nature into that of a common- 2vealth, 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.
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. '203 §. DO. Hence it is evident, that absolute mo- narchy, which by some men is counted the only government in the world, is indeed inconsis- tent with civil society, and so can be no form of civil government at all: for the end of civil society, being to avoid, and remedy those incon- veniencies of the state of nature, which neces- sarily 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, for the decision of any difference between them, there those persons are still in the stale of nature; and so is every absolute prince, in respect of those who are under his dominion.
§. 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 indif- ferently, and with authority decide, and from whose decision relief and redress may be ex- pected of any injury or inconveniency, that * The public power of all society is above every soul con- tained in the same society; and the principal use of that power is, to give laws unto all that are under it, which laws in such cases we must obey, unless there be reason shewed which may necessarily inforce, that the law of reason, or of God, doth enjoin the contrary, Hookers. Eccl. Pol. I. i, sect. 10.
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may be suffered from the prince, or by his order: so that such a man, however intitled, Czar, Grand Seignor, 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 inconveni- encies of it, with only this woeful difference to the subject, or rather slave of an absolute prince: that whereas, in the ordinary state of * 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 hut only by growing into composition and agree- ment amongst themselves, by ordaining some kind of govern- ment 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 howevermen may seek theirown 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 with- stood. 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 trou- bles would be endless, except they gave their common con- sent, 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 an other, Hooker's Eccl. Pol. I. i. sect. 10.
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 205 nature, he has a liberty to judge of his right, and according to the best of his power, to main- tain it; now, whenever his property is invaded by the will and order of his monarch, he has not only to appeal, as those in society ought to have, but as if he were degraded from the com- mon state of rational creatures, is denied a liberty to judge of, or to defend his right; and so is exposed to all the misery and inconve- niencies, that a man can fear from one, who being in the unrestrained state of nature, is yet corrupted with flattery, and armed with power.
§. 92. For he that thinks absolute power pu- rifies mens blood, and corrects the baseness of human nature, need read but the history of this, or any other age, to be convinced of the contrary. He that would have been insolent and injurious in the woods of America, would not probably be much better in a throne; where perhaps learning and religion shall be found out to justify all that he shall do to his subjects, and the sword presently silence all those that dare question it: for what the pro- lection 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 2GG OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
as other governments of the world, the sub- jects 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 advan- tage; and so are taken care of, not out of any love the master has for them, but love of him- self, and the profit they bring him: for if it be asked, what security, ivhat fence is there, in such a state, against the violence and oppression of this absolute ruler? the very question can scarce be borne. They are ready to tell you, that it deserves death only to ask after safety. Betwixt subject and subject, they will grant, there must be measures, laws and judges, for their mutual peace and security: but as for the ruler, he ought to be absolute, and is above all such circumstances; because he has power to do more hurt and wrong, it is right when he does it. To ask how you may be guarded from harm, or injury, on that side where the OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 207 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 mis- chiefs may be done them by pole-cats, 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 hinders not men from feeling; and when they perceive, that any man, in what station soever, is out of the bounds of the civil society which they are of, and that they have no appeal on earth against any harm, they may receive from him, they are apt to think themselves in the state of nature, in respect of him whom they find to be so; and to take care, as soon as they can, to have that safety and security in civil society, for which it was first instituted, and for which only they entered into it. And therefore, though perhaps at first, (as shall be shewed more at large hereafter in the following part of this discourse,) some one good and excellent man having got a pre-eminency amongst the rest, had this deference paid to his goodness and virtue, as to a kind of natural authority, that the chief rule, with arbitration of their dif- 268 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
ferences, by a tacit consent devolved into his, without any other caution, but the assurance they had of his uprightness and wisdom; yet when time, giving authority, and (as some men would persuade us) sacredness of customs, which the negligent, and unforeseeing inno- cence of the first ages began, had brought in successors of another stamp, the people finding their properties not secure under the govern- ment, as it then was, (whereas government has no other end but the preservation of property*) could never be safe nor at rest, nor think them- selves in civil society, till the legislature was placed in collective bodies of men, call them senate, parliament, or what you please. By which means every single person became sub- ject, equally with other the meanest men, to those laws, which lie 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 * At the first, when some certain kind of regiment was once appointed, it may be that nothing was then farther thought upon for the manner of 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 would have cured. They saw, that to lice by one mans will, became the cause of all mens misery. This constrained them to come unto laws, wherein all men might see their duty beforehand, and know the penalties of transgressing them. Hooker's Eccl. Pol. I. i. sect. 10.
* OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 2G9 superiority plead exemption, thereby to license his own, or the miscarriages of any of his de- pendents. No man in civil society can be ex- empted 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.
CHAPTER VIII.
Of the Beginning oj Political Societies.
§. 95. Men being, as has been said, by na- ture, all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent. The only way whereby any one di- vests himself of his natural liberty, and puts on the bonds of civil society, is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a com- munity, for their comfortable, safe and peace- able living one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater * Civil law being the act of the whole body politic, doth therefore over-rule each several part of the same body. Hooker s, Eccl. Pol. I. i. sect. 10.
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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 com- munity one body, with a power to act as one body, which is only by the will and determi- nation of the majority: for that which acts any community, being only the consent of the individuals of it, and it being necessary to that which is one body to move one way; it is necessary the body should move that way whither the greater force carries it, which is the consent of the majority: or else it is impossible it should act or continue one body, one com- munity, which the consent of every individual that united into it, agreed that it should; and so every one is bound by that consent to be concluded by the majority. And therefore we see, that in assemblies, impowered to act by positive laws, where no number is set by that positive law which impowers them, the act of the majority passes for the act of the whole, and of course determines, as having by the law of nature and reason, the power of the whole.
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 271 <§. 97. And thus every man, by consenting with others to make one body politic under one government, puts himself under an obli- gation 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 com- pact, 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 con- sent to? This would be still as great a liberty, as he himself had before his compact, or any one else in the state of nature hath, who may submit himself, and consent to any acts of it if he thinks fit.
§. 98. For if the consent of the majority shall not, in reason, be received as the act of the whole, and conclude every individual; nothing but the consent of every individual can make any thing to be the act of the whole: but such a consent is next to impossible ever to be had, if we consider the infirmities of health, and avocations of business, which in a number, though much less than that of a common- wealth, will necessarily keep many away from the public assembly. To which if we add the variety of opinions, and contrariety of interests, which unavoidably happen in all collections 272 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
of men, the coming into society upon such terms would be only like Cato's coming into the thea- tre, only to go out again. Such a constitution as this would make the mighty Leviathan of a shorter duration, than the feeblest creatures, and not let it outlast the day it was born in: which cannot be supposed, till we can think, that rational creatures should desire and con- stitute societies only to be dissolved: for where the majority cannot conclude the rest, there they cannot act as one body, and conse- quently will be immediately dissolved again.
§. 99. Whosoever therefore out of a state of nature unite into a community, must be under- stood to give up all the power, necessary to the ends for which they unite into society, to the majority of the community, unless they ex- pressly agreed in any number greater than the majority. And this is done by barely agreeing to unite into one political society, which is all the compact that is, or needs be, between the individuals, that enter into, or make up a commonwealth. And thus that, which begins and actually constitutes any political society, is nothing but the consent of any number of freemen capable of a majority to unite and in- corporate into such a society. And this is that, and that only, which did, or could give begin- ning to any lawful government in the world.
§. 100. To this 1 find two objections made.
First, That there are no instances to bej'ound in story, of a company ojy men independent, and OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 273 equal one amongst another, that met together, and in this way began and set up a government.
Secondly, It is impossible of right, that men should do so, because all men being bom 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 inconveniences of that condition, and the love and want of society, no sooner brought any number of them together, but they presently united and incorporated, if they designed to continue together. And if we may not suppose men ever to have been in the state of nature, because we hear not much of them in such a state, we may as well suppose the armies of Salmanasser or Xerxes were never children, be- cause we hear little of them, till they were men, and imbodied in armies. Government is every where antecedent to records, and letters seldom come in amongst a people till a long continua- tion of civil society has, by other more neces- sary 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 commoniucalths as with particular persons, they are commonly ignorant of their own births and infancies: and if they know any thing of their original, they are T 274 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.