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to him; and this law being promulgated or made known by reafon only, he that is not come to the use of his reafon, cannot be faid to be under this law; and Adam's children, being not presently as foon as born under this law of reafon, were not prefently free: for law, in its true notion, is not fo much the limitation as the direction of a free and intelligent agent to his proper intereft, and prefcribes no farther than is for the general good of those under that law could they be happier without it, the law, as an ufeless thing, would of itself vanish; and that ill deferves the name of confinement which hedges us in only from bogs and precipices. So that, however it may be mistaken, the end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preferve and enlarge freedom: for in all the states of created beings capable of laws, where there is no law, there is no freedom: for liberty is, to be free from reftraint and violence from others; which cannot be, where there is no law: but freedom is not, as we are told, a liberty for every man to do what he lifts: (for who could be free, when every other man's humour might domineer over him?) but a liberty to difpofe, and order as he lifts, his perfon, actions, poffeffions, and his whole property, within the allowance of those laws under which he is, and therein not to be subject to the arbitrary will of another, but freely follow his own.

§. 58.

§. 58. The power, then, that parents have over their children, arifes from that duty which is incumbent on them, to take care of their off-spring, during the imperfect state of childhood. To inform the mind, and govern the actions of their yet ignorant nonage, till reafon fhall take its place, and ease them of that trouble, is what the children want, and the parents are bound to: for God having given man an understanding to direct his actions, has allowed him a freedom of will, and liberty of acting, as properly belonging thereunto, within the bounds of that law he is under. But whilft he is in an eftate, wherein he has not understanding of his own to direct his will, he is not to have any will of his own to follow he that underftands for him, muft will for him too; he must prescribe to his will, and regulate his actions; but when he comes to the estate that made his father a freeman, the fon is a freeman too.

§. 59. This holds in all the laws a man is under, whether natural or civil. Is a man under the law of nature? What made him free of that law? what gave him a free difpofing of his property, according to his own will, within the compass of that law? I answer, a state of maturity wherein he might be suppofed capable to know that law, that fo he might keep his actions within the bounds of it. When he has acquired that state, he is R 2 prefumed

prefumed to know how far that law is to be his guide, and how far he may make use of his freedom, and fo comes to have it; till then, fome body elfe muft guide him, who is prefumed to know how far the law allows a liberty. If fuch a ftate of reafon, such an age of difcretion made him free, the fame fhall make his fon free too. Is a man

under the law of England? What made him free of that law? that is, to have the liberty to difpofe of his actions and poffeffions according to his own will, within the permiffion of that law? A capacity of knowing that law; which is fuppofed by that law, at the age of one and twenty years, and in fome cafes fooner. If this made the father free, it fhall make the fon free too. Till then we

fee the law allows the fon to have no will, but he is to be guided by the will of his father or guardian, who is to understand for him. And if the father die, and fail to fubftitute a deputy in his truft; if he hath not provided a tutor, to govern his fon, during his minority, during his want of understanding, the law takes care to do it; fome other must govern him, and be a will to him, till he hath attained to a state of freedom, and his understanding be fit to take the government of his will. But after that, the father and fon are equally free as much as tutor and pupil after nonage; equally fubjects of the fame law together, without any dominion

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eft in the father over the life, liberty, or eftate of his fon, whether they be only in the state and under the law of nature, or under the pofitive laws of an established government.

§. 60. But if, through defects that may happen out of the ordinary course of nature, any one comes not to fuch a degree of reafon, wherein he might be fuppofed capable of knowing the law, and fo living within the rules of it, he is never capable of being a free man, he is never let loose to the difpofure 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 uncapable of that charge. And fo lunatics and ideots are never fet 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 prefent cannot poffibly have the use of right reafon to guide themfelves, have for their guide, the reafon that guideth other men which are tutors over them, to feek and procure their good for them, fays Hooker, Eccl. Pol. lib. i. fect. 7. All which feems no more than that duty, which God and nature has laid on man, as well as other creatures, to preferve their offspring, till they can be able to shift for themfelves,

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felves, and will fcarce amount to an instance or proof of parents regal authority.

§. 61. Thus we are born free, as we are born rational; not that we have actually the exercise of either: age, that brings one, brings with it the other too. And thus we fee how natural freedom and fubjection to parents may confift together, and are both founded on the fame principle. A child is free by his father's title, by his father's understanding, which is to govern him till he hath it of his own. The freedom of a man at years of difcretion, and the fubjection of a child to his parents, whilft yet fhort of that age, are fo confiftent, and fo diftinguifhable, that the moft blinded contenders for monarchy, by right of fatherhood, cannot miss this difference; the moft obftinate cannot but allow their confiftency for were their doctrine all true, were the right heir of Adam now known, and by that title fettled a monarch in his throne, invefted with all the abfolute unlimited power Sir Robert Filmer talks of; if he fhould die as foon as his heir were born, muft not the child, notwithstanding he were never so free, never fo much fovereign, be in fubjection to his mother and nurse, to tutors and governors, till age and education. brought him reafon and ability to govern himself and others? The neceffities of his life, the health of his body, and the information of his mind, would require him to be directed

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