government theory

Chapter 1 On slavery and natural freedom
1.Slavery is an abhorrent and miserable condition of humanity, so directly contrary to the generosity and heroism of our nation, that it is hard to imagine an "Englishman" let alone a "gentleman" defending it. .Because of the title, the serious dedication, the picture on the cover, and the admiration that has been given to Sir Robert's book since its publication, I have to believe that the author and the publisher are all serious; People who believe that they are slaves and ought to be slaves would really take this one as another display of cleverness by the man who wrote the eulogy to Nero, rather than as serious, serious Treatise on it.I therefore took Sir Robert Filmer's Patriarchs, with all the anticipation one would expect of a treatise which would be a hit when it was published, and read it from cover to cover with the most absorbed attention.I have to admit that I was very surprised that this is a book that tries to set chains for all mankind, and all I found in it is a rope made of sand, which is specially used for rumors and confusion. It may be useful to the capable, to blind their eyes, and more easily lead them astray; but to those who see, to those who are well informed, and know how chains are, it is no more than a vicious rasp, no matter how well honed it may be. People who wear things, it has no power to bind them.

2.If anyone thinks that I am too presumptuous to speak so freely of a well-known icon of the support and worship of absolute power, I ask him to forgive me a little this time.For a man like myself, even after reading Sir Robert's books, cannot help thinking of himself as a free man allowed by the law.And I think there is nothing wrong with doing so, unless someone more familiar with the fate of the book than I can show me that this long-buried treatise, once published, can, by the force of its arguments, deprive people of All freedom in the world.And henceforth, our author's succinct model will be as exemplar as Christ's Mount Mount, and will be immortalized as the standard of perfection in politics.In fact, his system is built on a very small scale, saying nothing more than: since no man is born free, all government is absolute monarchy.

3.When there is such a group of people in the world, in order to flatter the monarchs, they insist that no matter what laws the monarchs follow to establish the country and rule, no matter what conditions they use to gain power, and no matter how they use eachother to pledge themselves By solemn promises and oaths to obey these laws, sovereigns have absolute powers conferred by divine right.Denying the natural right of man to liberty, these men do all they can to inflict upon all their subjects the greatest calamities of tyranny and oppression, while at the same time shaking the titles of princes and shaking their thrones (for according to the doctrines of these men , princes, all but one being natural slaves, and by theocracy all subjects of the heirs of Adam), as if they intended to declare war on all governments, and to overthrow the very foundations of human society. .

4.But when they tell us that we are all born slaves, and that there is no other way but to continue to be slaves, we have to believe their words.At birth we acquire life and slavery at the same time, and we must never cease to be slaves until we lose our life.I can find no such statement in the Bible or in reason, but these people insist on us believing that the authority of God has made us subject to the unlimited will of others.It is truly a wonderful state of beings, which their ingenuity has only discovered in recent years.Though Sir Robert Filmer seems to have reproached for being unconventional for opinions to the contrary, I still believe that he would have sought to find any other age or country outside this age or country which had ever affirmed a monarchy. Theocracy is not easy, and he admits: "Those who have in many ways bravely defended the right of kings, like Hayward, Clarkwood, Barclay, etc., have all acknowledged with one voice the natural liberty and equality of man, And never thought of that.”

5.Whoever first promoted this doctrine and made it prevail among us, and with what disastrous results it produced, I leave to the memory of those contemporaries of Sytop and Man-Wheeling, or to the historian. Go home and tell the story.My present task is simply to examine what Sir Robert Filmer (who has carried the argument to its extreme, and is thought to have attained perfection) has said in this respect.Because everyone who wants to be fashionable like a French court has learned from him and preached around his shallow system of political theory, that is: human beings are not born free, and therefore must never be free to choose their lives. Ruler or form of government; all powers of a prince are absolute and divine, and slaves can never have a right to covenant or assent; Adam was once a despot, and so have all princes since.

(End of this chapter)