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afe and value of money amongst his neighbours, u fhall fee the fame man will begin prefently to enlarge his poffeffions.fr barbon

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§. 5o. But fince gold and filver, being little useful to the life of man in proportion to food, taiment, and carriage, has its value only from the confent of men, whereof labour yet makes, in great part, the measure, it is plain, that men have agreed to a disproportionate and unequal poffeffion of the earth, they having, by a tacit and voluntary confent, found out a way how a man may fairly poffefs more land than he himself can use the product of, by receiving in exchange for the overplus gold and filver, which may be hoarded up without injury to any one; these metals not fpoiling or decaying in the hands of the poffeffor. This partage of things in an inequality of private poffeffions, men have made practicable out of the bounds of fociety, and without compact, only by putting a value on gold and filver, and tacitly agreeing in the ufe of money: for in governments, the laws regulate the right of property, and the poffeffion of land is determined by pofitive conftitutions.

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§. 51. And thus, I think, it is very eafy to conceive, without any difficulty, how labour could at first begin a title of property in the common things of nature, and how the fpending it upon our ufes bounded it. So that there could then be no reafon of quarrelling

about

about title, nor any doubt about the largenefs of poffeffion it gave. Right and conveniency went together; for as a man had a right to all he could lov his labour upon,

fo he had no temptation to labour for more than he could make ufe of. This left no room for controverfy about the title, nor for incroachment on the right of others; what portion a man carved to himfelf, was eafily feen; and it was useless, as well as difhoneft, to carve himself too much, or take more than he needed.

CHAP. VI.

Of Paternal Power.

5. 52. Impertinent criticifm, in a difcourfe T may perhaps be cenfured as an IT

of this nature, to find fault with words and names, that have obtained in the world: and yet poffibly it may not be amifs to offer new ones, when the old are apt to lead men into miftakes, as this of paternal power probably has done, which feems fo to place the power of parents over their children wholly in the father, as if the mother had no fhare in it; whereas, if we confult reafon or revelation, we fhall find, the hath an equal title. This may give one reafon to afk, whether this might not be more properly called parental power? for whatever obligation nature

and

and the right of generation lays on children, it muft certainly bind them equal to both the concurrent caufes of it. And accordingly we fee, the pofitive law of God every where joins them together, without diftinction, when it commands the obedience of children, Honour thy father and thy mother, Exod. xx. 12. Whofoever curfeth his father or his mother, Lev. xx. 9. Ye shall fear every man his mother and bis father, Lev. xix. 3. Children, obey your parents, &c. Eph. vi. 1. is the file of the Old and New Teftament.

§. 53. Had but this one thing been well confidered, without looking any deeper into the matter, it might perhaps have kept men from running into those grofs mistakes, they have made, about this power of parents; which, however it might, without any great harfhnefs, bear the name of abfolute dominion, and regal authority, when under the title of paternal power it feemed appropriated to the father, would yet have founded but oddly, and in the very name fhewn the abfurdity, if this fuppofed abfolute power over children had been called parental; and thereby have difcovered, that it belonged to the mother too for it will but very ill ferve the turn of thofe men, who contend fo much for the abfolute power and authority of the fatherhood, as they call it, that the mother should have any fhare in it; and it would have but ill fupported the monarchy they contend for,

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when by the very name it appeared, that that fundamental authority, from whence they would derive their government of a fingle perfon only, was not placed in one, but two perfons jointly. But to let this of names país.

§. 54. Though I have faid above, Chap. II. That all men by nature are equal, I cannot be fuppofed to understand all forts of equality: age or virtue may give men a juft precedency: excellency of parts and merit may place others above the common level: birth may fubject fome, and alliance or benefits others, to pay an obfervance to those to whom nature, gratitude, or other refpects, may have made it due and yet all this confifts with the lity, which all men are in, in refpect of jurifdiction or dominion one over another ; which was the equality I there fpoke of, as proper to the bufinefs in hand, being that equal right, that every man hath, to his natural freedom, without being fubjected to the will or authority of any other man.

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§. 55. Children, I confefs, are not born in this full state of equality, though they are born to it. Their parents have a fort of rule and jurifdiction over them, when they come into the world, and for fome time after; but it is but a temporary one. bonds of this fubjection are like the fwaddling clothes they art wrapt up in, and supported by, in the weakness of their infancy: age and

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reafon as they grow up, loofen them, till at length they drop quite off, and leave a man at his own free difpofal.

56. Adam was created a perfect man, his body and mind in full poffeffion of their ftrength and reafon, and fo was capable, from the first instant of his being to provide for his own fupport and prefervation, and govern his actions according to the dictates of the law of reafon which God had implanted in him. From him the world is peopled with his defcendants, who are all born infants, weak and helpless, without knowledge or understanding: but to fupply the defects of this imperfect ftate, till the improvement of growth and age hath removed them, Adam and Eve, and after them all parents were, by the law of nature, under an obligation to preferve, nourish, and educate the children they had begotten; not as their own workmanship, but the workmanship of their own maker, the Almighty, to whom they were to be accountable for them.

S. 57. The law, that was to govern Adam, was the fame that was to govern all his pofterity, the law of reafon. But his offfpring having another way of entrance into the world, different from him, by a natural birth, that produced them ignorant and without the use of reafon, they were not presently under that law; for no body can be under a law, which is not promulgated

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