in the breast of parents towards their
children, makes it evident, that this is not intended to be a severe
arbitrary government, but only for the help, instruction, and
preservation of their offspring. But happen it as it will, there is, as
I have proved, no reason why it should be thought to extend to life and
death, at any time, over their children, more than over any body else;
neither can there be any pretence why this parental power should keep
the child, when grown to a man, in subjection to the will of his
parents, any farther than having received life and education from his
parents, obliges him to respect, honour, gratitude, assistance and
support, all his life, to both father and mother. And thus, 'tis true,
the paternal is a natural government, but not at all extending itself to
the ends and jurisdictions of that which is political. The power of the
father doth not reach at all to the property of the child, which is only
in his own disposing.

Sect. 171. Secondly, Political power is that power, which every man
having in the state of nature, has given up into the hands of the
society, and therein to the governors, whom the society hath set over
itself, with this express or tacit trust, that it shall be employed for
their good, and the preservation of their property: now this power,
which every man has in the state of nature, and which he parts with to
the society in all such cases where the society can secure him, is to
use such means, for the preserving of his own property, as he thinks
good, and nature allows him; and to punish the breach of the law of
nature in others, so as (according to the best of his reason) may most
conduce to the preservation of himself, and the rest of mankind. So that
the end and measure of this power, when in every man's hands in the
state of nature, being the preservation of all of his society, that is,
all mankind in general, it can have no other end or measure, when in the
hands of the magistrate, but to preserve the members of that society in
their lives, liberties, and possessions; and so cannot be an absolute,
arbitrary power over their lives and fortunes, which are as much as
possible to be preserved; but a power to make laws, and annex such
penalties to them, as may tend to the preservation of the whole, by
cutting off those parts, and those only, which are so corrupt, that they
threaten the sound and healthy, without which no severity is lawful. And
this power has its orig