But to let
this of names pass.
Sec. 54. Though I have said above, Chap. II. That all men
by nature are equal, I cannot be supposed to understand all
sorts of equality: age or virtue may give men a just
precedency: excellency of parts and merit may place others
above the common level: birth may subject some, and alliance
or benefits others, to pay an observance to those to whom
nature, gratitude, or other respects, may have made it due: and
yet all this consists with the equality, which all men are in,
in respect of jurisdiction or dominion one over another; which
was the equality I there spoke of, as proper to the business in
hand, being that equal right, that every man hath, to his
natural freedom, without being subjected to the will or
authority of any other man.
Sec. 55. Children, I confess, are not born in this full
state of equality, though they are born to it. Their parents
have a sort of rule and jurisdiction over them, when they come
into the world, and for some time after; but it is but a
temporary one. The bonds of this subjection are like the
swaddling clothes they art wrapt up in, and supported by, in the
weakness of their infancy: age and reason as they grow up, loosen
them, till at length they drop quite off, and leave a man at his
own free disposal.
Sec. 56. Adam was created a perfect man, his body and
mind in full possession of their strength and reason, and so was
capable, from the first instant of his being to provide for his
own support and preservation, and govern his actions according to
the dictates of the law of reason which God had implanted in him.
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