If anybody should ask me when my son is of age to be
free, I shall answer, just when his monarch is of age to govern.
"But at what time," says the judicious Hooker (Eccl. Pol., lib. i., s.
6), "a man may be said to have attained so far forth the use of reason
as sufficeth to make him capable of those laws whereby he is then
bound to guide his actions; this is a great deal more easy for sense
to discern than for any one, by skill and learning, to determine."
62. Commonwealths themselves take notice of, and allow that there is
a time when men are to begin to act like free men, and therefore, till
that time, require not oaths of fealty or allegiance, or other
public owning of, or submission to, the government of their countries.
63. The freedom then of man, and liberty of acting according to
his own will, is grounded on his having reason, which is able to
instruct him in that law he is to govern himself by, and make him know
how far he is left to the freedom of his own will. To turn him loose
to an unrestrained liberty, before he has reason to guide him, is
not the allowing him the privilege of his nature to be free, but to
thrust him out amongst brutes, and abandon him to a state as
wretched and as much beneath that of a man as theirs.
Pages:
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65