§. 60. But if through defects that may happen out of the ordinary course of
Nature, any one comes not to such a degree of reason wherein he might be
supposed capable of knowing the law, and so living within the rules of it, he
is never capable of being a free man, he is never let loose to the disposure of
his own will; because he knows no bounds to it, has not understanding, its
proper guide, but is continued under the tuition and government of others all
the time his own understanding is incapable of that charge. And so lunatics and
idiots are never set free from the government of their parents:
"Children
who are not as yet come unto those years whereat they may have, and innocents,
which are excluded by a natural defect from ever having." Thirdly:
"Madmen, which, for the present, cannot possibly have the use of right
reason to guide themselves, have, for their guide, the reason that guideth
other men which are tutors over them, to seek and procure their good for
them,"
says Hooker (Eccl. Pol., lib. i., s. 7). All which seems no more
than that duty which God and Nature has laid on man, as well as other
creatures, to preserve their offspring till they can be able to shift for
themselves, and will scarce amount to an instance or proof of parents' regal
authority.
