Chapter 15
Of Paternal, Political and Despotical Power Considered
Together
§. 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 God 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 God 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.