Chapter the fourteenth.
Of MASTER and SERVANT.
HHAVING thus commented on the rights and duties of perſons, as ſtanding in the public relations of magiſtrates and people, the method I have marked out now leads me to conſider their rights and duties in private oeconomical relations.
The three great relations in private life are, 1. That of maſter and ſervant; which is founded in convenience, whereby a man is directed to call in the aſſiſtance of others, where his own ſkill and labour will not be ſufficient to anſwer the cares incumbent upon him. 2. That of huſband and wife; which is founded in nature, but modified by civil ſociety: the one directing man to continue and multiply his ſpecies, the other preſcribing the manner in which that natural impulſe muſt be confined and regulated. 3. That of parent and child, which is conſequential to that of marriage, being it's principal end and deſign: and it is by virtue of this relation that infants are protected, maintained, and educated. But, ſince the parents, on whom this care is primarily incumbent, may be ſnatched away by death or otherwiſe, before they have completed their duty, the law has therefore provided a fourth relation; 4. That of guardian and ward, which is a kind of artificial parentage, in order to ſupply the deficiency, whenever it happens, of the natural. Of all theſe relations in their order.
