Two Treatises Government John Locke - Faculty of Social Sciences ...

36/John LockeChapter VIOf Adam’s Title to Sovereignty by Fatherhood.§50. There is one thing more, and then I think I have given you all thatour author brings for proof of Adam’s sovereignty, and that is a suppositionof a natural right of dominion over his children, by being theirfather: and this title of fatherhood he is so pleased with, that you willfind it brought in almost in every page; particularly he says, “not onlyAdam, but the succeeding patriarchs had, by right of fatherhood, royalauthority over their children,” p. 12. And in the same page, “this subjectionof children being the fountain of all regal authority,” &c. This being,as one would think by his so frequent mentioning it, the main basisof all his frame, we may well expect clear and evident reason for it,since he lays it down as a position necessary to his purpose, that “everyman that is born is so far from being free, that by his very birth hebecomes a subject of him that begets him,” O. 156. So that Adam beingthe only man created, and all ever since being begotten, nobody hasbeen born free. If we ask how Adam comes by this power over hischildren, he tells us here it is lay begetting them: and so again, O.223,“This natural dominion of Adam,” says he, “may be proved out of Grotiushimself, who teacheth that ‘generations jus acquiritur parentibus inliberos.’” And indeed the act of begetting being that which makes a mana father, his right of a father over his children can naturally arise fromnothing else.§51. Grotius tells us Lot here how far this “jus in liberos,” thispower of parents over their children extends; but our author, alwaysvery clear in the point, assures us it is supreme power, and like that ofabsolute monarchs over their slaves, absolute power of life and death.He that should demand of him how, or for what reason it is, that begettinga child gives the father such an absolute power over him, will findhim answer nothing: we are to take his word for this, as well as severalother things, and by that the laws of nature and the constitutions ofgovernment must stand or fall. Had he been an absolute monarch, thisway of talking might have suited well enough; “pro ratione voluntas,”might have been of force in his mouth; but in the way of proof or argumentis very unbecoming, and will little advantage his plea for absolutemonarchy. Sir Robert has too much lessened a subject’s authority toleave himself the hopes of establishing any thing by his bare saying it;one slave’s opinion without proof, is not of weight enough to dispose ofthe liberty and fortunes of all mankind. If all men are not, as I think they