§. 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.
