CHAP. IV.

Of SLAVERY.

Sec. 22. THE natural liberty of man is to be free from any
superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or
legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature
for his rule. The liberty of man, in society, is to be under no
other legislative power, but that established, by consent, in the
commonwealth; nor under the dominion of any will, or restraint of
any law, but what that legislative shall enact, according to the
trust put in it. Freedom then is not what Sir Robert Filmer
tells us, Observations, A. 55. a liberty for 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 the rule prescribes not; and not to be
subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of
another man: as freedom of nature is, to be under no other
restraint but the law of nature.
Sec. 23. 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. No body 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.
Sec. 24. 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. xxi.