Wherein liberty doth consist; and the difference between subjects and servants.
9. What then, will some one demand, is the difference between a son, or between a subject and a servant? Neither do I know that any writer hath fully declared what liberty and what slavery is. Commonly, to do all things according to our own fancies, and that without punishment, is esteemed to be liberty; not to be able to do this, is judged bondage; which in a civil government, and with the peace of mankind, cannot possibly be done; because there is no city without a command and a restraining right. Liberty, that we may define it, is nothing else but an absence of the lets and hindrances of motion; as water shut up in a vessel is therefore not at liberty, because the vessel hinders it from running out; which, the vessel being broken, is made free. And every man hath more or less liberty, as he hath more or less space in which he employs himself: as he hath more liberty, who is in a large, than he that is kept in a close prison. And a man may be free toward one part, and yet not toward another; as the traveller is bounded on this and that side with hedges or stone walls, lest he spoil the vines or corn neighbouring on the highway. And these kinds of lets are external and absolute. In which sense all servants and subjects are free, who are not fettered and imprisoned. There are others which are arbitrary, which do not absolutely hinder motion, but by accident, to wit, by our own choice; as he that is in a ship, is not so hindered but he may cast himself into the sea, if he will. And here also the more ways a man may move himself, the more liberty he hath. And herein consists civil liberty; for no man, whether subject, son, or servant, is so hindered by the punishments appointed by the city, the father, or the lord, how cruel soever, but that he may do all things, and make use of all means necessary to the preservation of his life and health. For my part therefore I cannot find what reason a mere servant hath to make complaints, if they relate only to want of liberty; unless he count it a misery to be restrained from hurting himself, and to receive that life, which by war, or misfortune, or through his own idleness was forfeited, together with all manner of sustenance, and all things necessary to the conservation of health, on this condition only, that he will be ruled. For he that is kept in by punishments laid before him, so as he dares not let loose the reins to his will in all things, is not oppressed by servitude, but is governed and sustained. But this privilege free subjects and sons of a family have above servants in every government and family where servants are; that they may both undergo the more honourable offices of the city or family, and also enjoy a larger possession of things superfluous. And herein lies the difference between a free subject and a servant, that he is free indeed, who serves his city only; but a servant is he, who also serves his fellow-subject. All other liberty is an exemption from the laws of the city, and proper only to those that bear rule.
There is the same right in an hereditary, which there is in an institutive government.
10. A father with his sons and servants, grown into a civil person by virtue of his paternal jurisdiction, is called a family. This family, if through multiplying of children and acquisition of servants it becomes numerous, insomuch as without casting the uncertain die of war it cannot be subdued, will be termed an hereditary kingdom. Which though it differ from an institutive monarchy, being acquired by force, in the original and manner of its constitution; yet being constituted, it hath all the same properties, and the right of authority is everywhere the same; insomuch as it is not needful to speak anything of them apart.
The question concerning the right of succession belongs only to monarchy.
11. It hath been spoken, by what right supreme authorities are constituted. We must now briefly tell you, by what right they may be continued. Now the right by which they are continued, is that which is called the right of succession. Now because in a democracy the supreme authority is with the people, as long as there be any subjects in being, so long it rests with the same person; for the people hath no successor. In like manner in an aristocracy, one of the nobles dying, some other by the rest is substituted in his place; and therefore except they all die together, which I suppose will never happen, there is no succession. The query therefore of the right of succession takes place only in an absolute monarchy. For they who exercise the supreme power for a time only, are themselves no monarchs, but ministers of state.
A monarch may dispose of the command of his government by testament:
12. But first, if a monarch shall by testament appoint one to succeed him, the person appointed shall succeed. For if he be appointed by the people, he shall have all the right over the city which the people had, as hath been showed in chap. VII. [art. 11]. But the people might choose him; by the same right therefore may he choose another. But in an hereditary kingdom, there are the same rights as in an institutive. Wherefore every monarch may by his will make a successor.
Or give it away, or sell it.
13. But what a man may transfer on another by testament, that by the same right may he, yet living, give or sell away. To whomsoever therefore he shall make over the supreme power, whether by gift or sale, it is rightly made.