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.
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 see how natural freedom and subjection
to parents may consist together, and are both founded on the same
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.
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