Chapter IV
                              Of Slavery

  21. The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power
on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of
man, but to have only the law of Nature for his rule. 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. Nobody can give more power than he has himself, and he that
cannot take away his own life cannot give another power over it.
Indeed, having by his fault forfeited his own life by some act that
deserves death, he to whom he has forfeited it may, when he has him in
his power, delay to take it, and make use of him to his own service;
and he does him no injury by it. For, whenever he finds the hardship
of his slavery outweigh the value of his life, it is in his power,
by resisting the will of his master, to draw on himself the death he
desires.
  23. This is the perfect condition of slavery, which is nothing
else but the state of war continued between a lawful conqueror and a
captive, for if once compact enter between them, and make an agreement
for a limited power on the one side, and obedience on the other, the
state of war and slavery ceases as long as the compact endures; for,
as has been said, no man can by agreement pass over to another that
which he hath not in himself- a power over his own life.
  I confess, we find among the Jews, as well as other nations, that
men did sell themselves; but it is plain this was only to drudgery,
not to slavery; for it is evident the person sold was not under an
absolute, arbitrary, despotical power, for the master could not have
power to kill him at any time, whom at a certain time he was obliged
to let go free out of his service; and the master of such a servant
was so far from having an arbitrary power over his life that he
could not at pleasure so much as maim him, but the loss of an eye or
tooth set him free (Exod. 21.).