variety of
connexions, will be far more numerous and more complicated. These will
take up a greater space in any code of laws, and hence may appear to
be more attended to, though in reality they are not, than the rights
of the former kind. Let us therefore proceed to examine how far all
laws ought, and how far the laws of England actually do, take notice
of these absolute rights, and provide for their lasting security.

THE absolute rights of man, considered as a free agent, endowed with
discernment to know good from evil, and with power of choosing those
measures which appear to him to be most desirable, are usually summed
up in one general appellation, and denominated the natural liberty of
mankind. This natural liberty consists properly in a power of acting
as one thinks fit, without any restraint or control, unless by the law
of nature: being a right inherent in us by birth, and one of the gifts
of God to man at his creation, when he endued him with the faculty of
freewill. But every man, when he enters into society, gives up a part
of his natural liberty, as the price of so valuable a purchase; and,
in consideration of receiving the advantages of mutual commerce,
obliges himself to conform to those laws, which the community has
thought proper to establish. And this species of legal obedience and
conformity is infinitely more desirable, than that wild and savage
liberty which is sacrificed to obtain it. For no man, that considers a
moment, would wish to retain the absolute and uncontroled power of
doing whatever he pleases; the consequence of which is, that every
other man would also have the same power; and then there would be no
security to individuals in any of the enjoyments of life. Political
therefore, or civil, liberty, which is that of a member of society, is
no other than natural liberty so far restrained by human laws (and no
farther) as is necessary and expedient for the general advantage of
the publick[c]. Hence we may collect that the law, which restrains a
man from doing mischief to his fellow citizens, though it diminishes
the natural, increases the civil liberty of mankind: but every wanton
and causeless restraint of the will of the subject, whether practiced
by a monarch, a nobility, or a popular assembly, is a degree of
tyranny. Nay, that even laws themselves, whether made with or without
our consent, if they regulate and constrain our conduct in matters of
mere indifference, without any good end i