Chapter VII
                    Of Political or Civil Society

  77. GOD, having made man such a creature that, in His own
judgment, it was not good for him to be alone, put him under strong
obligations of necessity, convenience, and inclination, to drive him
into society, as well as fitted him with understanding and language to
continue and enjoy it. The first society was between man and wife,
which gave beginning to that between parents and children, to which,
in time, that between master and servant came to be added. And
though all these might, and commonly did, meet together, and make up
but one family, wherein the master or mistress of it had some sort
of rule proper to a family, each of these, or all together, came short
of "political society," as we shall see if we consider the different
ends, ties, and bounds of each of these.
  78. Conjugal society is made by a voluntary compact between man
and woman, and though it consist chiefly in such a communion and right
in one another's bodies as is necessary to its chief end, procreation,
yet it draws with it mutual support and assistance, and a communion of
interests too, as necessary not only to unite their care and
affection, but also necessary to their common offspring, who have a
right to be nourished and maintained by them till they are able to
provide for themselves.
  79. For the end of conjunction between male and female being not
barely procreation, but the continuation of the species, this
conjunction betwixt male and female ought to last, even after
procreation, so long as is necessary to the nourishment and support of
the young ones, who are to be sustained by those that got them till
they are able to shift and provide for themselves. This rule, which
the infinite wise Maker hath set to the works of His hands, we find
the inferior creatures steadily obey. In those vivaporous animals
which feed on grass the conjunction between male and female lasts no
longer than the very act of copulation, because the teat of the dam
being sufficient to nourish the young till it be able to feed on
grass. the male only begets, but concerns not himself for the female
or young, to whose sustenance he can contribute nothing. But in beasts
of prey the conjunction lasts longer because the dam, not being able
well to subsist herself and nourish her numerous offspring by her
own prey alone (a more laborious as well as more dangerous way of
living than by feeding on grass), the assistance of the male is
necessary to the maintenance of their common family, which cannot
subsist till they are able to prey for themselves, but by the joint
care of male and female. The same is observed in all birds (except
some domestic ones, where plenty of food excuses the cock from feeding
and taking care of the young brood), whose young, needing food in
the nest, the cock and hen continue mates till the young are able to
use their wings and provide for themselves.
  80. And herein, I think, lies the chief, if not the only reason, why
the male and female in mankind are tied to a longer conjunction than
other creatures- viz., because the female is capable of conceiving,
and, de facto, is commonly with child again, and brings forth too a
new birth, long before the former is out of a dependency for support
on his parents' help and able to shift for himself and has all the
assistance due to him from his parents, whereby the father, who is
bound to take care for those he hath begot, is under an obligation
to continue in conjugal society with the same woman longer than
other creatures, whose young, being able to subsist of themselves
before the time of procreation returns again, the conjugal bond
dissolves of itself, and they are at liberty till Hymen, at his
usual anniversary season, summons them again to choose new mates.
Wherein one cannot but admire the wisdom of the great Creator, who,
having given to man an ability to lay up for the future as well as
supply the present necessity, hath made it necessary that society of
man and wife should be more lasting than of male and female amongst
other creatures, that so their industry might be encouraged, and their
interest better united, to make provision and lay up goods for their
common issue, which uncertain mixture, or easy and frequent
solutions of conjugal society, would mightily disturb.
  81. But though these are ties upon mankind which make the conjugal
bonds more firm and lasting in a man than the other species of
animals, yet it would give one reason to inquire why this compact,
where procreation and education are secured and inheritance taken care
for, may not be made determinable, either by consent, or at a
certain time, or upon certain conditions, as well as any other
voluntary compacts, there being no necessity, in the nature of the
thing, nor to the ends of it, that it should always be for life- I
mean, to such as are under no restraint of any positive law which
ordains all such contracts to be perpetual.
  82. But the husband and wife, though they have but one common
concern, yet having different understandings, will unavoidably
sometimes have different wills too. It therefore being necessary
that the last determination (i.e., the rule) should be placed
somewhere, it naturally falls to the man's share as the abler and
the stronger. But this, reaching but to the things of their common
interest and property, leaves the wife in the full and true possession
of what by contract is her peculiar right, and at least gives the
husband no more power over her than she has over his life; the power
of the husband being so far from that of an absolute monarch that
the wife has, in many cases, a liberty to separate from him where
natural right or their contract allows it, whether that contract be
made by themselves in the state of Nature or by the customs or laws of
the country they live in, and the children, upon such separation, fall
to the father or mother's lot as such contract does determine.
  83. For all the ends of marriage being to be obtained under
politic government, as well as in the state of Nature, the civil
magistrate doth not abridge the right or power of either, naturally
necessary to those ends- viz., procreation and mutual support and
assistance whilst they are together, but only decides any
controversy that may arise between man and wife about them. If it were
otherwise, and that absolute sovereignty and power of life and death
naturally belonged to the husband, and were necessary to the society
between man and wife, there could be no matrimony in any of these
countries where the husband is allowed no such absolute authority. But
the ends of matrimony requiring no such power in the husband, it was
not at all necessary to it. The condition of conjugal society put it
not in him; but whatsoever might consist with procreation and
support of the children till they could shift for themselves- mutual
assistance, comfort, and maintenance- might be varied and regulated by
that contract which first united them in that society, nothing being
necessary to any society that is not necessary to the ends for which
it is made.
  84. The society betwixt parents and children, and the distinct
rights and powers belonging respectively to them, I have treated of so
largely in the foregoing chapter that I shall not here need to say
anything of it; and I think it is plain that it is far different
from a politic society.
  85. Master and servant are names as old as history, but given to
those of far different condition; for a free man makes himself a
servant to another by selling him for a certain time the service he
undertakes to do in exchange for wages he is to receive; and though
this commonly puts him into the family of his master, and under the
ordinary discipline thereof, yet it gives the master but a temporary
power over him, and no greater than what is contained in the
contract between them. But there is another sort of servant which by a
peculiar name we call slaves, who being captives taken in a just war
are, by the right of Nature, subjected to the absolute dominion and
arbitrary power of their masters. These men having, as I say,
forfeited their lives and, with it, their liberties, and lost their
estates, and being in the state of slavery, not capable of any
property, cannot in that state be considered as any part of civil
society, the chief end whereof is the preservation of property.
  86. Let us therefore consider a master of a family with all these
subordinate relations of wife, children, servants and slaves, united
under the domestic rule of a family, with what resemblance soever it
may have in its order, offices, and number too, with a little
commonwealth, yet is very far from it both in its constitution, power,
and end; or if it must be thought a monarchy, and the paterfamilias
the absolute monarch in it, absolute monarchy will have but a very
shattered and short power, when it is plain by what has been said
before, that the master of the family has a very distinct and
differently limited power both as to time and extent over those
several persons that are in it; for excepting the slave (and the
family is as much a family, and his power as paterfamilias as great,
whether there be any slaves in his family or no) he has no legislative
power of life and death over any of them, and none too but what a
mistress of a family may have as well as he. And he certainly can have
no absolute power over the whole family who has but a very limited one
over every individual in it. But how a family, or any other society of
men, differ from that which is properly political society, we shall
best see by considering wherein political society itself consists.
  87. Man being born, as has been proved, with a title to perfect
freedom and an uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges
of the law of Nature, equally with any other man, or number of men
in the world, hath by nature a power not only to preserve his
property- that is, his life, liberty, and estate, against the injuries
and attempts of other men, but to judge of and punish the breaches
of that law in others, as he is persuaded the offence deserves, even
with death itself, in crimes where the heinousness of the fact, in his
opinion, requires it. But because no political society can be, nor
subsist, without having in itself the power to preserve the
property, and in order thereunto punish the offences of all those of
that society, there, and there only, is political society where
every one of the members hath quitted this natural power, resigned
it up into the hands of the community in all cases that exclude him
not from appealing for protection to the law established by it. And
thus all private judgment of every particular member being excluded,
the community comes to be umpire, and by understanding indifferent
rules and men authorised by the community for their execution, decides
all the differences that may happen between any members of that
society concerning any matter of right, and punishes those offences
which any member hath committed against the society with such
penalties as the law has established; whereby it is easy to discern
who are, and are not, in political society together. Those who are
united into one body, and have a common established law and judicature
to appeal to, with authority to decide controversies between them
and punish offenders, are in civil society one with another; but those
who have no such common appeal, I mean on earth, are still in the
state of Nature, each being where there is no other, judge for himself
and executioner; which is, as I have before showed it, the perfect
state of Nature.
  88. And thus the commonwealth comes by a power to set down what
punishment shall belong to the several transgressions they think
worthy of it, committed amongst the members of that society (which
is the power of making laws), as well as it has the power to punish
any injury done unto any of its members by any one that is not of it
(which is the power of war and peace); and all this for the
preservation of the property of all the members of that society, as
far as is possible. But though every man entered into society has
quitted his power to punish offences against the law of Nature in
prosecution of his own private judgment, yet with the judgment of
offences which he has given up to the legislative, in all cases
where he can appeal to the magistrate, he has given up a right to
the commonwealth to employ his force for the execution of the
judgments of the commonwealth whenever he shall be called to it,
which, indeed, are his own judgements, they being made by himself or
his representative. And herein we have the original of the legislative
and executive power of civil society, which is to judge by standing
laws how far offences are to be punished when committed within the
commonwealth; and also by occasional judgments founded on the
present circumstances of the fact, how far injuries from without are
to be vindicated, and in both these to employ all the force of all the
members when there shall be need.
  89. Wherever, therefore, any number of men so unite into one society
as to quit every one his executive power of the law of Nature, and
to resign it to the public, there and there only is a political or
civil society. And this is done wherever any number of men, in the
state of Nature, enter into society to make one people one body
politic under one supreme government: or else when any one joins
himself to, and incorporates with any government already made. For
hereby he authorises the society, or which is all one, the legislative
thereof, to make laws for him as the public good of the society
shall require, to the execution whereof his own assistance (as to
his own decrees) is due. And this puts men out of a state of Nature
into that of a commonwealth, by setting up a judge on earth with
authority to determine all the controversies and redress the
injuries that may happen to any member of the commonwealth, which
judge is the legislative or magistrates appointed by it. And
wherever there are any number of men, however associated, that have no
such decisive power to appeal to, there they are still in the state of
Nature.
  90. And hence it is evident that absolute monarchy, which by some
men is counted for the only government in the world, is indeed
inconsistent with civil society, and so can be not form of civil
government at all. For the end of civil society being to avoid and
remedy those inconveniences of the state of Nature which necessarily
follow from every man's being judge in his own case, by setting up a
known authority to which every one of that society may appeal upon any
injury received, or controversy that may arise, and which every one of
the society ought to obey.* Wherever any persons are who have not such
an authority to appeal to, and decide any difference between them
there, those persons are still in the state of Nature. And so is every
absolute prince in respect of those who are under his dominion.

  * "The public power of all society is above every soul contained
in the same society, and the principal use of that power is to give
laws unto all that are under it, which laws in such cases we must
obey, unless there be reason showed which may necessarily enforce that
the law of reason or of God doth enjoin the contrary." Hooker, Eccl.
Pol., i. 16.

  91. For he being supposed to have all, both legislative and
executive, power in himself alone, there is no judge to be found, no
appeal lies open to any one, who may fairly and indifferently, and
with authority decide, and from whence relief and redress may be
expected of any injury or inconveniency that may be suffered from him,
or by his order. So that such a man, however entitled, Czar, or
Grand Signior, or how you please, is as much in the state of Nature,
with all under his dominion, as he is with the rest of mankind. For
wherever any two men are, who have no standing rule and common judge
to appeal to on earth, for the determination of controversies of right
betwixt them, there they are still in the state of Nature, and under
all the inconveniencies of it, with only this woeful difference to the
subject, or rather slave of an absolute prince.* That whereas, in
the ordinary state of Nature, he has a liberty to judge of his
right, according to the best of his power to maintain it; but whenever
his property is invaded by the will and order of his monarch, he has
not only no appeal, as those in society ought to have, but, as if he
were degraded from the common state of rational creatures, is denied a
liberty to judge of, or defend his right, and so is exposed to all the
misery and inconveniencies that a man can fear from one, who being
in the unrestrained state of Nature, is yet corrupted with flattery
and armed with power.

  * "To take away all such mutual grievances, injuries, and wrongs-
i.e., such as attend men in the state of Nature, there was no way
but only by growing into composition and agreement amongst
themselves by ordaining some kind of government public, and by
yielding themselves subject thereunto, that unto whom they granted
authority to rule and govern, by them the peace, tranquillity, and
happy estate of the rest might be procured. Men always knew that where
force and injury was offered, they might be defenders of themselves.
They knew that, however men may seek their own commodity, yet if
this were done with injury unto others, it was not to be suffered, but
by all men and all good means to be withstood. Finally, they knew that
no man might, in reason, take upon him to determine his own right, and
according to his own determination proceed in maintenance thereof,
in as much as every man is towards himself, and them whom he greatly
affects, partial; and therefore, that strifes and troubles would be
endless, except they gave their common consent, all to be ordered by
some whom they should agree upon, without which consent there would be
no reason that one man should take upon him to be lord or judge over
another." Hooker, ibid. 10.

  92. For he that thinks absolute power purifies men's blood, and
corrects the baseness of human nature, need read but the history of
this, or any other age, to be convinced to the contrary. He that would
have been insolent and injurious in the woods of America would not
probably be much better on a throne, where perhaps learning and
religion shall be found out to justify all that he shall do to his
subjects, and the sword presently silence all those that dare question
it. For what the protection of absolute monarchy is, what kind of
fathers of their countries it makes princes to be, and to what a
degree of happiness and security it carries civil society, where
this sort of government is grown to perfection, he that will look into
the late relation of Ceylon may easily see.
  93. In absolute monarchies, indeed, as well as other governments
of the world, the subjects have an appeal to the law, and judges to
decide any controversies, and restrain any violence that may happen
betwixt the subjects themselves, one amongst another. This every one
thinks necessary, and believes; he deserves to be thought a declared
enemy to society and mankind who should go about to take it away.
But whether this be from a true love of mankind and society, and
such a charity as we owe all one to another, there is reason to doubt.
For this is no more than what every man, who loves his own power,
profit, or greatness, may, and naturally must do, keep those animals
from hurting or destroying one another who labour and drudge only
for his pleasure and advantage; and so are taken care of, not out of
any love the master has for them, but love of himself, and the
profit they bring him. For if it be asked what security, what fence is
there in such a state against the violence and oppression of this
absolute ruler, the very question can scarce be borne. They are
ready to tell you that it deserves death only to ask after safety.
Betwixt subject and subject, they will grant, there must be
measures, laws, and judges for their mutual peace and security. But as
for the ruler, he ought to be absolute, and is above all such
circumstances; because he has a power to do more hurt and wrong, it is
right when he does it. To ask how you may be guarded from or injury on
that side, where the strongest hand is to do it, is presently the
voice of faction and rebellion. As if when men, quitting the state
of Nature, entered into society, they agreed that all of them but
one should be under the restraint of laws; but that he should still
retain all the liberty of the state of Nature, increased with power,
and made licentious by impunity. This is to think that men are so
foolish that they take care to avoid what mischiefs may be done them
by polecats or foxes, but are content, nay, think it safety, to be
devoured by lions.
  94. But, whatever flatterers may talk to amuse people's
understandings, it never hinders men from feeling; and when they
perceive that any man, in what station soever, is out of the bounds of
the civil society they are of, and that they have no appeal, on earth,
against any harm they may receive from him, they are apt to think
themselves in the state of Nature, in respect of him whom they find to
be so; and to take care, as soon as they can, to have that safety
and security, in civil society, for which it was first instituted, and
for which only they entered into it. And therefore, though perhaps
at first, as shall be showed more at large hereafter, in the following
part of this discourse, some one good and excellent man having got a
pre-eminency amongst the rest, had this deference paid to his goodness
and virtue, as to a kind of natural authority, that the chief rule,
with arbitration of their differences, by a tacit consent devolved
into his hands, without any other caution but the assurance they had
of his uprightness and wisdom; yet when time giving authority, and, as
some men would persuade us, sacredness to customs, which the negligent
and unforeseeing innocence of the first ages began, had brought in
successors of another stamp, the people finding their properties not
secure under the government as then it was* (whereas government has no
other end but the preservation of property), could never be safe,
nor at rest, nor think themselves in civil society, till the
legislative was so placed in collective bodies of men, call them
senate, parliament, or what you please, by which means every single
person became subject equally with other the meanest men, to those
laws, which he himself, as part of the legislative, had established;
nor could any one, by his own authority, avoid the force of the law,
when once made, nor by any pretence of superiority plead exemption,
thereby to license his own, or the miscarriages of any of his
dependants. No man in civil society can be exempted from the laws of
it. For if any man may do what he thinks fit and there be no appeal on
earth for redress or security against any harm he shall do, I ask
whether he be not perfectly still in the state of Nature, and so can
be no part or member of that civil society, unless any one will say
the state of Nature and civil society are one and the same thing,
which I have never yet found any one so great a patron of anarchy as
to affirm.*(2)

  * "At the first, when some certain kind of regimen was once
appointed, it may be that nothing was then further thought upon for
the manner of governing, but all permitted unto their wisdom and
discretion which were to rule till, by experience, they found this for
all parts very inconvenient, so as the thing which they had devised
for a remedy did indeed but increase the sore which it should have
cured. They saw that to live by one man's will became the cause of all
men's misery. This constrained them to come unto laws wherein all
men might see their duty beforehand, and know the penalties of
transgressing them." Hooker, Eccl. Pol. i. 10.
  *(2) "Civil law, being the act of the whole body politic, doth
therefore overrule each several part of the same body." Hooker, ibid.