Thoughts on civil liberty, on licentiousness, and faction/Section 3

 

SECT.III.

 

Of Licentiousness and Faction.

 

FROM the Nature of civil Liberty, thus delineated, the Nature of Licentiousness will easily be fixed: Being indeed no other than "Every Desire carry'd into Action, which in any Respect violates those equal Laws, established for the common Benefit of the Whole."

Thus, an unlimited Indulgence of Appetite, which in the savage State is called natural Liberty, in the social State is stiled Licentiousness.

And Licentiousness, when its immediate Object is That of "thwarting the Ends of civil Liberty," is distinguished by the Name of Faction.