"...concerning liberty, I observe a great mistake in the country about that.
There is a twofold liberty, natural (I mean as our natural is now corrupt)
and civil or federal. The first is common to man with beast and other
creatures.by this, man, as he stands in relation to man simply, hath liberty
to do what he lists; it is a liberty to evil as well as to good."
There is a twofold liberty, natural (I mean as our natural is now corrupt)
and civil or federal. The first is common to man with beast and other
creatures.by this, man, as he stands in relation to man simply, hath liberty
to do what he lists; it is a liberty to evil as well as to good."
This passage from John Winthrop's journal, The Little Speech (1639), speaks
directly on how he feels towards natural liberty. He believed that we as humans,
our natural instincts are to be born evil and to live as brutes. He believed that our
"natural behavior (natural liberty)" can be curbed by establishing common laws
or rules (civil liberties). He also states that our natural liberty is what makes us act
like animals while civil liberties are what keeps us from acting like brutes and we
follow them not because we are forced to, but because we are free to do so.
