And thus, it is true, the
paternal is a natural government, but not at all extending itself to
the ends and jurisdictions of that which is political. The power of
the father doth not reach at all to the property of the child, which
is only in his own disposing.
171. Secondly, political power is that power which every man
having in the state of Nature has given up into the hands of the
society, and therein to the governors whom the society hath set over
itself, with this express or tacit trust, that it shall be employed
for their good and the preservation of their property. Now this power,
which every man has in the state of Nature, and which he parts with to
the society in all such cases where the society can secure him, is
to use such means for the preserving of his own property as he
thinks good and Nature allows him; and to punish the breach of the law
of Nature in others so as (according to the best of his reason) may
most conduce to the preservation of himself and the rest of mankind;
so that the end and measure of this power, when in every man's
hands, in the state of Nature, being the preservation of all of his
society- that is, all mankind in general- it can have no other end
or measure, when in the hands of the magistrate, but to preserve the
members of that society in their lives, liberties, and possessions,
and so cannot be an absolute, arbitrary power over their lives and
fortunes, which are as much as possible to be preserved; but a power
to make laws, and annex such penalties to them as may tend to the
preservation of the whole, by cutting off those parts, and those only,
which are so corrupt that they threaten the sound and healthy, without
which no severity is lawful.
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