John Locke, from The Second Treatise of Government

Some quotations relevant to Wollstonecraft and Mill...


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 common-wealth; 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 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 the rule prescribes not; and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man. . .

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.

every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself.

the end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom

we are born free, as we are born rational; not that we have actually the exercise of either: age, that brings one, brings with it the other too.

The freedom then of man, and liberty of acting according to his own will, is grounded on his having reason, which is able to instruct him in the law he is to govern himself by, and make him know how far he is left to the freedom of his own will.

Conjugal society is made by a voluntary compact between man and woman; and tho' 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 care and affection, but also necessary to their common off-spring, who have a right to be nourished, and maintained by them, till they are able to provide for themselves.


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