§. 85. Master and servant are names as old as history, but given to those of
far different condition; for a free man makes himself a servant to another by
selling him for a certain time the service he undertakes to do in exchange for
wages he is to receive; and though this commonly puts him into the family of
his master, and under the ordinary discipline thereof, yet it gives the master
but a temporary power over him, and no greater than what is contained in the
contract between them. But there is another sort of servant which by a peculiar
name we call slaves, who being captives taken in a just war are, by the right
of Nature, subjected to the absolute dominion and arbitrary power of their
masters. These men having, as I say, forfeited their lives and, with it, their
liberties, and lost their estates, and being in the state of slavery, not
capable of any property, cannot in that state be considered as any part of
civil society, the chief end whereof is the preservation of property.
