27]; that is, live with full consent under the entire guidance of reason.

(16:59) Children, though they are bound to obey all the commands of their
parents, are yet not slaves: for the commands of parents look generally to
the children's benefit.

(60) We must, therefore, acknowledge a great difference between a slave, a
son, and a subject; their positions may be thus defined. (61) A slave is one
who is bound to obey his master's orders, though they are given solely in
the master's interest: a son is one who obeys his father's orders, given
in his own interest; a subject obeys the orders of the sovereign power,
given for the common interest, wherein he is included.

(16:62) I think I have now shown sufficiently clearly the basis of a
democracy: I have especially desired to do so, for I believe it to be of all
forms of government the most natural, and the most consonant with individual
liberty. (63) In it no one transfers his natural right so absolutely that he
has no further voice in affairs, he only hands it over to the majority of a
society, whereof he is a unit. Thus all men remain as they were in the state
of nature, equals.

(16:64) This is the only form of government which I have treated of at
length, for it is the one most akin to my purpose of showing the benefits of
freedom in a state.

(65) I may pass over the fundamental principles of other forms of
government, for we may gather from what has been said whence their right
arises without going into its origin. (66) The possessor of sovereign power,
whether he be one, or many, or the whole body politic, has the sovereign
right of imposing any commands he pleases: and he who has either