tempts, exercifing a power the people never put into their hands, (who can never be fupposed to confent that any body should rule over them for their harm) do that which they have not a right to do. And where the body of the people, or any fingle man, is deprived of their right, or is under the exercife of a power without right, and have no appeal on earth, then they have a liberty to appeal to heaven, whenever they judge the caufe of fufficient moment. And therefore, though the people cannot be judge, so as to have, by the conftitution of that fociety, any fuperior power, to determine and give effective fentence in the cafe; yet they have, by a law antecedent and paramount to all pofitive laws of men, referved that ultimate, determination to themfelves which belongs, to all mankind, where there lies no appeal, on earth, viz. to judge, whether they have just cause to make their appeal to heaven.. And this judgment they cannot part with, it being out of a man's power fo to fubmit himself to another, as to give him a liberty. to destroy him; God and nature never allowing a man fo to abandon himfelf, as to neglect his own prefervation: and fince he cannot take away his own life, neither can he give another power to take it. Nor let any one think, this lays a perpetual foundation for disorder; for this operates not, till. the inconveniency is fo great, that the majority

feel

feel it, and are weary of it, and find a neceffity to have it amended. But this the executive power, or wife princes, never need come in the danger of: and it is the thing, of all others, they have moft need to avoid, as of all others the most perilous.

CHA P. XV.

Of Paternal, Political, and Defpotical Power, confidered together.

§. 169. T

HOUGH I have had occafion to speak of these separately before, yet the great miftakes of late about government, having, as I fuppofe, arisen from confounding thefe diftinct powers one with another, it may not, perhaps, be amifs to confider 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 fuppofed 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 feveral others, who live as freemen under that law. The affection and tenderness which God hath planted in the breast of parents towards their children,

makes

makes it evident, that this is not intended to be a fevere arbitrary government, but only for the help, inftruction, and prefervation of their offspring. But happen it as it will, there is, as I have proved, no reason why it should be thought to extend to life and death, at any time, over their children, more than over any body elfe; neither can there be any pretence why this parental power fhould keep the child, when grown to a man, in subjection to the will of his parents, any farther than having received life and education from his parents, obliges him to refpect, honour, gratitude, affiftance and support, all his life, to both father and mother. And thus, 'tis true, the paternal is a natural government, but not at all extending itself to the ends and jurisdictions of that which is political. The power of the father doth not reach at all to the property of the child, which is only in his own difpofing.

§. 171. Secondly, Political power is that power, which every man having in the ftate of nature, has given up into the hands of the fociety, and therein to the governors, whom the fociety hath fet over itself, with this express or tacit truft, that it shall be employed for their good, and the prefervation of their property now this power, which every man has in the fate of nature, and which he parts with to the fociety in all fuch cafes where the fociety can fecure him, is to use such means, for the preferving of his own property,

4

perty, as he thinks good, and nature allows him; and to punish the breach of the law of nature in others, fo as (according to the best of his reafon) may moft conduce to the prefervation of himself, and the rest of mankind. So that the end and measure of this power, when in every man's hands in the ftate of nature, being the prefervation of all of his fociety, that is, all mankind in general, it can have no other end or meafure, when in the hands of the magiftrate, but to preferve the members of that fociety in their lives, liberties, and poffeffions; and fo cannot be an abfolute, arbitrary power over their lives and fortunes, which are as much as poffible to be preserved; but a power to make laws, and annex fuch penalties to them, as may tend to the prefervation of the whole, by cutting off thofe parts, and those only, which are fo corrupt, that they threaten the found and healthy, without which no feverity is lawful. And this power has its original only from compact and agreement, and the mutual confent of thofe who make up the community..

§. 172. Thirdly, Defpotical power is an abfolute, arbitrary power one man has over another, to take away his life, whenever he pleases. This is a power, which neither nature gives, for it has made no fuch diftinction between one man and another; nor compact can convey: for man not having fuch an arbitrary power over his own life, cannot give another man fuch a power over it; but it is

the

the effect only of forfeiture, which the aggreffor makes of his own life, when he puts himself into the ftate of war with another: for having quitted reason, which God hath given to be the rule betwixt man and man, and the common bond whereby human kind is united into one fellowship and society; and having renounced the way of peace which that teaches, and made ufe of the force of war, to compass his unjuft ends upon another, where he has no right; and fo revolting from his own kind to that of beafts, by making force, which is their's, to be his rule of right, he renders himself liable to be destroyed by the injured perfon, and the rest of mankind, that will join with him in the execution of justice, as any other wild beast, or noxious brute, with whom mankind can have neither fociety nor fecurity*. nor fecurity*. And thus captives, taken in a just and lawful war, and fuch only, are fubject to a defpotical power, which, as it arifes 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 mafter of his own life? what condition can he perform ? and if he be once allowed to be mafter of his own life, the defpotical, arbitrary power of his mafter ceafes. He that is mafter of himself, and his own life, has a right too to the means of preferving it; fo that as foon as compact

* Another copy corrected by Mr. Locke, has it thus, Noxious brute that is deftructive to their being.