Chapter 4
Of Slavery
§. 21. 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: "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 that rule prescribes
not, 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.
§. 22. 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. Nobody 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.
§. 23. 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. 21.).