CHAP. II.: Different Significations of the Word, Liberty.

THERE is no word that admits of more various significations, and has made more different impressions on the human mind, than that of liberty. Some have taken it for a facility of deposing a person on whom they had conferred a tyrannical authority: others, for the power of choosing a superior whom they are obliged to obey; others, for the right of bearing arms, and of being thereby enabled to use violence: others, in fine, for the privilege of being governed by a native of their own country, or by their own laws. I have copied, says Cicero, Scævola’s edict, which permits the Greeks to terminate their difference among themselves according to their own laws: this makes them consider themselves as a free people. ^†309 A certain nation, for a long time, thought liberty consisted in the privilege of wearing a long beard. The Russians could not bear that Czar Peter should make them cut it off. ^†310 Some have annexed this name to one form of government exclusive

of others: those who had a republican taste applied it to this species of polity: those who liked a monarchical state gave it to monarchy. The Cappadocians refused the condition of a republican state, which was offered them by the Romans. ^†311 Thus they have all applied the name of liberty to the government most suitable to their own customs and inclinations; and as, in republics, the people have not so constant and so present a view of the causes of their misery, and as the magistrates seem to act only in conformity to the laws, hence liberty is generally said to reside in republics, and to be banished from monarchies. In fine, as in democracies the people seem to act almost as they please, this sort of government has been deemed the most free, and the power of the people has been confounded with their liberty.