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.
22. This freedom from absolute, arbitrary power is so necessary
to, and closely joined with, a man's preservation, that he cannot part
with it but by what forfeits his preservation and life together. For a
man, not having the power of his own life, cannot by compact or his
own consent enslave himself to any one, nor put himself under the
absolute, arbitrary power of another to take away his life when he
pleases.
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