21. 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
commonwealth, 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, then, is not what Sir Robert
Filmer tells us: “A liberty for every one to do what he lists,
to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws”; but
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 that rule prescribes not, not to be subject
to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another
man, as freedom of nature is to be under no other restraint but
the law of Nature. 22. This freed