"Slavery is so vile and miserable an estate of man, and so directly opposite to the generous temper and courage of our nation; that 'tis hardly to be conceived, that an Englishman, much less a gentleman, should please for it. And truly, I should have taken Sir Robert Filmer's Patriarcha as any other treatise, which would persuade all men, that they are slaves, and ought to be so, for such another exercise of wit, as was his who writ the encomium of Nero, rather than for a serious discourse meant in earnest, had not the gravity of the title and epistle the picture in the front of the book, and the applause that followed it, required me to believe, that the author and publisher were both in earnest.: (First, Treatise, pg. 5)

"And this authority of parents, he calls 'royal authority', 'fatherly authority', 'right of fatherhood'. One would have...