[1.] What lord and servant signify. [2.] The distinction of servants, into such as upon trust enjoy their natural liberty, and slaves, or such as serve being imprisoned or bound in fetters. [3.] The obligation of a servant arises from the liberty of body allowed him by his lord. [4.] Servants that are bound, are not by any compacts tied to their lords. [5.] Servants have no propriety in their goods against their lord. [6.] The lord may sell his servant, or alienate him by testament [7.] The lord cannot injure his servant. [8.] He that is lord of the lord, is lord also of his servants. [9.] By what means servants are freed. [10.] Dominion over beasts belongs to the right of nature.
What lord and servant are.
1. In the two foregoing chapters we have treated of an institutive or framed government, as being that which receives its original from the consent of many, who by contract and faith mutually given have obliged each other. Now follows what may be said concerning a natural government; which may also be called acquired, because it is that which is gotten by power and natural force. But we must know in the first place, by what means the right of dominion may be gotten over the persons of men. Where such a right is gotten, there is a kind of a little kingdom; for to be a king, is nothing else but to have dominion over many persons; and thus a great family is a kingdom, and a little kingdom a family. Let us return again to the state of nature, and consider men as if but even now sprung out of the earth, and suddenly, like mushrooms, come to full maturity, without all kind of engagement to each other. There are but three ways only, whereby one can have a dominion over the person of another; whereof the first is, if by mutual contract made between themselves, for peace and self-defence’s sake, they have willingly given up themselves to the power and authority of some man, or council of men; and of this we have already spoken. The second is, if a man taken prisoner in the wars, or overcome, or else distrusting his own forces, to avoid death, promises the conqueror or the stronger party his service, that is, to do all whatsoever he shall command him. In which contract, the good which the vanquished or inferior in strength doth receive, is the grant of his life, which by the right of war in the natural state of men he might have been deprived of; but the good which he promises, is his service and obedience. By virtue therefore of this promise, there is as absolute service and obedience due from the vanquished to the vanquisher, as possibly can be, excepting what repugns the divine laws; for he who is obliged to obey the commands of any man before he knows what he will command him, is simply and without any restriction tied to the performance of all commands whatsoever. Now he that is thus tied, is called a servant; he to whom he is tied, a lord. Thirdly, there is a right acquired over the person of a man by generation; of which kind of acquisition somewhat shall be spoken in the following chapter.
The distinction of servants, into such as upon trust enjoy their natural liberty, and slaves, or such as serve being imprisoned or fettered.
2. Every one that is taken in the war, and hath his life spared him, is not supposed to have contracted with his lord; for every one is not trusted with so much of his natural liberty, as to be able, if he desired it, either to fly away, or quit his service, or contrive any mischief to his lord. And these serve indeed, but within prisons or bound within irons; and therefore they were called not by the common name of servant only, but by the peculiar name of slave; even as now at this day, un serviteur, and un serf, or un esclave have diverse significations.
The obligation of a servant ariseth from that freedom which is granted him by his lord.
3. The obligation therefore of a servant to his lord, ariseth not from a simple grant of his life; but from hence rather, that he keeps him not bound or imprisoned. For all obligation derives from contract; but where there is no trust, there can be no contract, as appears by chap. ii. [art. 9]; where a compact is defined to be the promise of him who is trusted. There is therefore a confidence and trust which accompanies the benefit of pardoned life, whereby the lord affords him his corporal liberty; so that if no obligation nor bonds of contract had happened, he might not only have made his escape, but also have killed his lord who was the preserver of his life.
Servants that are bound, are not obliged to their lord by any contract.
4. Wherefore such kind of servants as are restrained by imprisonment or bonds, are not comprehended in that definition of servants given above; because those serve not for the contract’s sake, but to the end they may not suffer. And therefore if they fly, or kill their lord, they offend not against the laws of nature. For to bind any man, is a plain sign that the binder supposes him that is bound, not to be sufficiently tied by any other obligation.
Servants have no propriety in their goods against their lord.