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LEVIATHAN by
Thomas Hobbes
Published 1651. Source text in the public domain. This
edition © 1998 William J. Ball |
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[1] INTRODUCTION |
| What is the artificial animal, the
Leviathan? What are its parts? |
[2] NATURE (the art whereby
God hath made and governs the world) is by the art of man, as in many other things, so in
this also imitated, that it can make an artificial animal. For seeing life is but a motion
of limbs, the beginning whereof is in some principal part within, why may we not say that
all automata (engines that move themselves by springs and wheels as doth a watch) have an
artificial life? For what is the heart, but a spring; and the nerves, but so many strings;
and the joints, but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body, such as was intended
by the Artificer? Art goes yet further, imitating that rational and most excellent work of
Nature, man. For by art is created that great LEVIATHAN called a COMMONWEALTH, or STATE
(in Latin, CIVITAS), which is but an artificial man, though of greater stature and
strength than the natural, for whose protection and defence it was intended; and in which
the sovereignty is an artificial soul, as giving life and motion to the whole body; the
magistrates and other officers of judicature and execution, artificial joints; reward and
punishment (by which fastened to the seat of the sovereignty, every joint and member is
moved to perform his duty) are the nerves, that do the same in the body natural; the
wealth and riches of all the particular members are the strength; salus populi (the
people's safety) its business; counsellors, by whom all things needful for it to know are
suggested unto it, are the memory; equity and laws, an artificial reason and will;
concord, health; sedition, sickness; and civil war, death. Lastly, the pacts and
covenants, by which the parts of this body politic were at first made, set together, and
united, resemble that fiat, or the Let us make man, pronounced by God in the Creation. |
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[3] To describe the nature of
this artificial man, I will consider |
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[4] First, the matter
thereof, and the artificer; both which is man. |
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[5] Secondly, how, and by
what covenants it is made; what are the rights and just power or authority of a sovereign;
and what it is that preserveth and dissolveth it. |
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[6] Thirdly, what is a
Christian Commonwealth. |
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[7] Lastly, what is the
Kingdom of Darkness. |
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[8] Concerning the first,
there is a saying much usurped of late, that wisdom is acquired, not by reading of books,
but of men. Consequently whereunto, those persons, that for the most part can give no
other proof of being wise, take great delight to show what they think they have read in
men, by uncharitable censures of one another behind their backs. But there is another
saying not of late understood, by which they might learn truly to read one another, if
they would take the pains; and that is, Nosce teipsum, Read thyself: which was not meant,
as it is now used, to countenance either the barbarous state of men in power towards their
inferiors, or to encourage men of low degree to a saucy behaviour towards their betters;
but to teach us that for the similitude of the thoughts and passions of one man, to the
thoughts and passions of another, whosoever looketh into himself and considereth what he
doth when he does think, opine, reason, hope, fear, etc., and upon what grounds; he shall
thereby read and know what are the thoughts and passions of all other men upon the like
occasions. I say the similitude of passions, which are the same in all men,- desire, fear,
hope, etc.; not the similitude of the objects of the passions, which are the things
desired, feared, hoped, etc.: for these the constitution individual, and particular
education, do so vary, and they are so easy to be kept from our knowledge, that the
characters of man's heart, blotted and confounded as they are with dissembling, lying,
counterfeiting, and erroneous doctrines, are legible only to him that searcheth hearts.
And though by men's actions we do discover their design sometimes; yet to do it without
comparing them with our own, and distinguishing all circumstances by which the case may
come to be altered, is to decipher without a key, and be for the most part deceived, by
too much trust or by too much diffidence, as he that reads is himself a good or evil man. |
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[9] But let one man read
another by his actions never so perfectly, it serves him only with his acquaintance, which
are but few. He that is to govern a whole nation must read in himself, not this, or that
particular man; but mankind: which though it be hard to do, harder than to learn any
language or science; yet, when I shall have set down my own reading orderly and
perspicuously, the pains left another will be only to consider if he also find not the
same in himself. For this kind of doctrine admitteth no other demonstration. |
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[10] THE FIRST PART OF MAN |
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[11] CHAPTER I OF SENSE |
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[12] CONCERNING the thoughts
of man, I will consider them first singly, and afterwards in train or dependence upon one
another. Singly, they are every one a representation or appearance of some quality, or
other accident of a body without us, which is commonly called an object. Which object
worketh on the eyes, ears, and other parts of man's body, and by diversity of working
produceth diversity of appearances. |
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[13] The original of them
all is that which we call sense, (for there is no conception in a man's mind which hath
not at first, totally or by parts, been begotten upon the organs of sense). The rest are
derived from that original. |
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[14] To know the natural
cause of sense is not very necessary to the business now in hand; and I have elsewhere
written of the same at large. Nevertheless, to fill each part of my present method, I will
briefly deliver the same in this place. |
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[15] The cause of sense is
the external body, or object, which presseth the organ proper to each sense, either
immediately, as in the taste and touch; or mediately, as in seeing, hearing, and smelling:
which pressure, by the mediation of nerves and other strings and membranes of the body,
continued inwards to the brain and heart, causeth there a resistance, or counter-pressure,
or endeavour of the heart to deliver itself: which endeavour, because outward, seemeth to
be some matter without. And this seeming, or fancy, is that which men call sense; and
consisteth, as to the eye, in a light, or colour figured; to the ear, in a sound; to the
nostril, in an odour; to the tongue and palate, in a savour; and to the rest of the body,
in heat, cold, hardness, softness, and such other qualities as we discern by feeling. All
which qualities called sensible are in the object that causeth them but so many several
motions of the matter, by which it presseth our organs diversely. Neither in us that are
pressed are they anything else but diverse motions (for motion produceth nothing but
motion). But their appearance to us is fancy, the same waking that dreaming. And as
pressing, rubbing, or striking the eye makes us fancy a light, and pressing the ear
produceth a din; so do the bodies also we see, or hear, produce the same by their strong,
though unobserved action. For if those colours and sounds were in the bodies or objects
that cause them, they could not be severed from them, as by glasses and in echoes by
reflection we see they are: where we know the thing we see is in one place; the
appearance, in another. And though at some certain distance the real and very object seem
invested with the fancy it begets in us; yet still the object is one thing, the image or
fancy is another. So that sense in all cases is nothing else but original fancy caused (as
I have said) by the pressure that is, by the motion of external things upon our eyes,
ears, and other organs, thereunto ordained. |
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[16] But the philosophy
schools, through all the universities of Christendom, grounded upon certain texts of
Aristotle, teach another doctrine; and say, for the cause of vision, that the thing seen
sendeth forth on every side a visible species, (in English) a visible show, apparition, or
aspect, or a being seen; the receiving whereof into the eye is seeing. And for the cause
of hearing, that the thing heard sendeth forth an audible species, that is, an audible
aspect, or audible being seen; which, entering at the ear, maketh hearing. Nay, for the
cause of understanding also, they say the thing understood sendeth forth an intelligible
species, that is, an intelligible being seen; which, coming into the understanding, makes
us understand. I say not this, as disapproving the use of universities: but because I am
to speak hereafter of their office in a Commonwealth, I must let you see on all occasions
by the way what things would be amended in them; amongst which the frequency of
insignificant speech is one. |
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[17] CHAPTER II OF
IMAGINATION |
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[18] THAT when a thing lies
still, unless somewhat else stir it, it will lie still for ever, is a truth that no man
doubts of. But that when a thing is in motion, it will eternally be in motion, unless
somewhat else stay it, though the reason be the same (namely, that nothing can change
itself), is not so easily assented to. For men measure, not only other men, but all other
things, by themselves: and because they find themselves subject after motion to pain and
lassitude, think everything else grows weary of motion, and seeks repose of its own
accord; little considering whether it be not some other motion wherein that desire of rest
they find in themselves consisteth. From hence it is that the schools say, heavy bodies
fall downwards out of an appetite to rest, and to conserve their nature in that place
which is most proper for them; ascribing appetite, and knowledge of what is good for their
conservation (which is more than man has), to things inanimate, absurdly. |
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[19] When a body is once in
motion, it moveth (unless something else hinder it) eternally; and whatsoever hindreth it,
cannot in an instant, but in time, and by degrees, quite extinguish it: and as we see in
the water, though the wind cease, the waves give not over rolling for a long time after;
so also it happeneth in that motion which is made in the internal parts of a man, then,
when he sees, dreams, etc. For after the object is removed, or the eye shut, we still
retain an image of the thing seen, though more obscure than when we see it. And this is it
the Latins call imagination, from the image made in seeing, and apply the same, though
improperly, to all the other senses. But the Greeks call it fancy, which signifies
appearance, and is as proper to one sense as to another. Imagination, therefore, is
nothing but decaying sense; and is found in men and many other living creatures, as well
sleeping as waking. |
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[20] The decay of sense in
men waking is not the decay of the motion made in sense, but an obscuring of it, in such
manner as the light of the sun obscureth the light of the stars; which stars do no less
exercise their virtue by which they are visible in the day than in the night. But because
amongst many strokes which our eyes, ears, and other organs receive from external bodies,
the predominant only is sensible; therefore the light of the sun being predominant, we are
not affected with the action of the stars. And any object being removed from our eyes,
though the impression it made in us remain, yet other objects more present succeeding, and
working on us, the imagination of the past is obscured and made weak, as the voice of a
man is in the noise of the day. From whence it followeth that the longer the time is,
after the sight or sense of any object, the weaker is the imagination. For the continual
change of man's body destroys in time the parts which in sense were moved: so that
distance of time, and of place, hath one and the same effect in us. For as at a great
distance of place that which we look at appears dim, and without distinction of the
smaller parts, and as voices grow weak and inarticulate: so also after great distance of
time our imagination of the past is weak; and we lose, for example, of cities we have
seen, many particular streets; and of actions, many particular circumstances. This
decaying sense, when we would express the thing itself (I mean fancy itself), we call
imagination, as I said before. But when we would express the decay, and signify that the
sense is fading, old, and past, it is called memory. So that imagination and memory are
but one thing, which for diverse considerations hath diverse names. |
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[21] Much memory, or memory
of many things, is called experience. Again, imagination being only of those things which
have been formerly perceived by sense, either all at once, or by parts at several times;
the former (which is the imagining the whole object, as it was presented to the sense) is
simple imagination, as when one imagineth a man, or horse, which he hath seen before. The
other is compounded, when from the sight of a man at one time, and of a horse at another,
we conceive in our mind a centaur. So when a man compoundeth the image of his own person
with the image of the actions of another man, as when a man imagines himself a Hercules or
an Alexander (which happeneth often to them that are much taken with reading of romances),
it is a compound imagination, and properly but a fiction of the mind. There be also other
imaginations that rise in men, though waking, from the great impression made in sense: as
from gazing upon the sun, the impression leaves an image of the sun before our eyes a long
time after; and from being long and vehemently attent upon geometrical figures, a man
shall in the dark, though awake, have the images of lines and angles before his eyes;
which kind of fancy hath no particular name, as being a thing that doth not commonly fall
into men's discourse. |
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[22] The imaginations of
them that sleep are those we call dreams. And these also (as all other imaginations) have
been before, either totally or by parcels, in the sense. And because in sense, the brain
and nerves, which are the necessary organs of sense, are so benumbed in sleep as not
easily to be moved by the action of external objects, there can happen in sleep no
imagination, and therefore no dream, but what proceeds from the agitation of the inward
parts of man's body; which inward parts, for the connexion they have with the brain and
other organs, when they be distempered do keep the same in motion; whereby the
imaginations there formerly made, appear as if a man were waking; saving that the organs
of sense being now benumbed, so as there is no new object which can master and obscure
them with a more vigorous impression, a dream must needs be more clear, in this silence of
sense, than are our waking thoughts. And hence it cometh to pass that it is a hard matter,
and by many thought impossible, to distinguish exactly between sense and dreaming. For my
part, when I consider that in dreams I do not often nor constantly think of the same
persons, places, objects, and actions that I do waking, nor remember so long a train of
coherent thoughts dreaming as at other times; and because waking I often observe the
absurdity of dreams, but never dream of the absurdities of my waking thoughts, I am well
satisfied that, being awake, I know I dream not; though when I dream, I think myself
awake. |
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[23] And seeing dreams are
caused by the distemper of some of the inward parts of the body, diverse distempers must
needs cause different dreams. And hence it is that lying cold breedeth dreams of fear, and
raiseth the thought and image of some fearful object, the motion from the brain to the
inner parts, and from the inner parts to the brain being reciprocal; and that as anger
causeth heat in some parts of the body when we are awake, so when we sleep the overheating
of the same parts causeth anger, and raiseth up in the brain the imagination of an enemy.
In the same manner, as natural kindness when we are awake causeth desire, and desire makes
heat in certain other parts of the body; so also too much heat in those parts, while we
sleep, raiseth in the brain an imagination of some kindness shown. In sum, our dreams are
the reverse of our waking imaginations; the motion when we are awake beginning at one end,
and when we dream, at another. |
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[24] The most difficult
discerning of a man's dream from his waking thoughts is, then, when by some accident we
observe not that we have slept: which is easy to happen to a man full of fearful thoughts;
and whose conscience is much troubled; and that sleepeth without the circumstances of
going to bed, or putting off his clothes, as one that noddeth in a chair. For he that
taketh pains, and industriously lays himself to sleep, in case any uncouth and exorbitant
fancy come unto him, cannot easily think it other than a dream. We read of Marcus Brutus
(one that had his life given him by Julius Caesar, and was also his favorite, and
notwithstanding murdered him), how at Philippi, the night before he gave battle to
Augustus Caesar, he saw a fearful apparition, which is commonly related by historians as a
vision, but, considering the circumstances, one may easily judge to have been but a short
dream. For sitting in his tent, pensive and troubled with the horror of his rash act, it
was not hard for him, slumbering in the cold, to dream of that which most affrighted him;
which fear, as by degrees it made him wake, so also it must needs make the apparition by
degrees to vanish: and having no assurance that he slept, he could have no cause to think
it a dream, or anything but a vision. And this is no very rare accident: for even they
that be perfectly awake, if they be timorous and superstitious, possessed with fearful
tales, and alone in the dark, are subject to the like fancies, and believe they see
spirits and dead men's ghosts walking in churchyards; whereas it is either their fancy
only, or else the knavery of such persons as make use of such superstitious fear to pass
disguised in the night to places they would not be known to haunt. |
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[25] From this ignorance of
how to distinguish dreams, and other strong fancies, from vision and sense, did arise the
greatest part of the religion of the Gentiles in time past, that worshipped satyrs, fauns,
nymphs, and the like; and nowadays the opinion that rude people have of fairies, ghosts,
and goblins, and of the power of witches. For, as for witches, I think not that their
witchcraft is any real power, but yet that they are justly punished for the false belief
they have that they can do such mischief, joined with their purpose to do it if they can,
their trade being nearer to a new religion than to a craft or science. And for fairies,
and walking ghosts, the opinion of them has, I think, been on purpose either taught, or
not confuted, to keep in credit the use of exorcism, of crosses, of holy water, and other
such inventions of ghostly men. Nevertheless, there is no doubt but God can make unnatural
apparitions: but that He does it so often as men need to fear such things more than they
fear the stay, or change, of the course of Nature, which he also can stay, and change, is
no point of Christian faith. But evil men, under pretext that God can do anything, are so
bold as to say anything when it serves their turn, though they think it untrue; it is the
part of a wise man to believe them no further than right reason makes that which they say
appear credible. If this superstitious fear of spirits were taken away, and with it
prognostics from dreams, false prophecies, and many other things depending thereon, by
which crafty ambitious persons abuse the simple people, men would be would be much more
fitted than they are for civil obedience. |
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[26] And this ought to be
the work of the schools, but they rather nourish such doctrine. For (not knowing what
imagination, or the senses are) what they receive, they teach: some saying that
imaginations rise of themselves, and have no cause; others that they rise most commonly
from the will; and that good thoughts are blown (inspired) into a man by God, and evil
thoughts, by the Devil; or that good thoughts are poured (infused) into a man by God, and
evil ones by the Devil. Some say the senses receive the species of things, and deliver
them to the common sense; and the common sense delivers them over to the fancy, and the
fancy to the memory, and the memory to the judgement, like handing of things from one to
another, with many words making nothing understood. |
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[27] The imagination that is
raised in man (or any other creature endued with the faculty of imagining) by words, or
other voluntary signs, is that we generally call understanding, and is common to man and
beast. For a dog by custom will understand the call or the rating of his master; and so
will many other beasts. That understanding which is peculiar to man is the understanding
not only his will, but his conceptions and thoughts, by the sequel and contexture of the
names of things into affirmations, negations, and other forms of speech: and of this kind
of understanding I shall speak hereafter. |
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[28] CHAPTER III OF THE
CONSEQUENCE OR TRAIN OF IMAGINATIONS |
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[29] BY CONSEQUENCE, or
train of thoughts, I understand that succession of one thought to another which is called,
to distinguish it from discourse in words, mental discourse. |
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[30] When a man thinketh on
anything whatsoever, his next thought after is not altogether so casual as it seems to be.
Not every thought to every thought succeeds indifferently. But as we have no imagination,
whereof we have not formerly had sense, in whole or in parts; so we have no transition
from one imagination to another, whereof we never had the like before in our senses. The
reason whereof is this. All fancies are motions within us, relics of those made in the
sense; and those motions that immediately succeeded one another in the sense continue also
together after sense: in so much as the former coming again to take place and be
predominant, the latter followeth, by coherence of the matter moved, in such manner as
water upon a plain table is drawn which way any one part of it is guided by the finger.
But because in sense, to one and the same thing perceived, sometimes one thing, sometimes
another, succeedeth, it comes to pass in time that in the imagining of anything, there is
no certainty what we shall imagine next; only this is certain, it shall be something that
succeeded the same before, at one time or another. |
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[31] This train of thoughts,
or mental discourse, is of two sorts. The first is unguided, without design, and
inconstant; wherein there is no passionate thought to govern and direct those that follow
to itself as the end and scope of some desire, or other passion; in which case the
thoughts are said to wander, and seem impertinent one to another, as in a dream. Such are
commonly the thoughts of men that are not only without company, but also without care of
anything; though even then their thoughts are as busy as at other times, but without
harmony; as the sound which a lute out of tune would yield to any man; or in tune, to one
that could not play. And yet in this wild ranging of the mind, a man may oft-times
perceive the way of it, and the dependence of one thought upon another. For in a discourse
of our present civil war, what could seem more impertinent than to ask, as one did, what
was the value of a Roman penny? Yet the coherence to me was manifest enough. For the
thought of the war introduced the thought of the delivering up the King to his enemies;
the thought of that brought in the thought of the delivering up of Christ; and that again
the thought of the 30 pence, which was the price of that treason: and thence easily
followed that malicious question; and all this in a moment of time, for thought is quick. |
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[32] The second is more
constant, as being regulated by some desire and design. For the impression made by such
things as we desire, or fear, is strong and permanent, or (if it cease for a time) of
quick return: so strong it is sometimes as to hinder and break our sleep. From desire
ariseth the thought of some means we have seen produce the like of that which we aim at;
and from the thought of that, the thought of means to that mean; and so continually, till
we come to some beginning within our own power. And because the end, by the greatness of
the impression, comes often to mind, in case our thoughts begin to wander they are quickly
again reduced into the way: which, observed by one of the seven wise men, made him give
men this precept, which is now worn out: respice finem; that is to say, in all your
actions, look often upon what you would have, as the thing that directs all your thoughts
in the way to attain it. |
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[33] The train of regulated
thoughts is of two kinds: one, when of an effect imagined we seek the causes or means that
produce it; and this is common to man and beast. The other is, when imagining anything
whatsoever, we seek all the possible effects that can by it be produced; that is to say,
we imagine what we can do with it when we have it. Of which I have not at any time seen
any sign, but in man only; for this is a curiosity hardly incident to the nature of any
living creature that has no other passion but sensual, such as are hunger, thirst, lust,
and anger. In sum, the discourse of the mind, when it is governed by design, is nothing
but seeking, or the faculty of invention, which the Latins call sagacitas, and solertia; a
hunting out of the causes of some effect, present or past; or of the effects of some
present or past cause. Sometimes a man seeks what he hath lost; and from that place, and
time, wherein he misses it, his mind runs back, from place to place, and time to time, to
find where and when he had it; that is to say, to find some certain and limited time and
place in which to begin a method of seeking. Again, from thence, his thoughts run over the
same places and times to find what action or other occasion might make him lose it. This
we call remembrance, or calling to mind: the Latins call it reminiscentia, as it were a
re-conning of our former actions. |
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[34] Sometimes a man knows a
place determinate, within the compass whereof he is to seek; and then his thoughts run
over all the parts thereof in the same manner as one would sweep a room to find a jewel;
or as a spaniel ranges the field till he find a scent; or as a man should run over the
alphabet to start a rhyme. |
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[35] Sometimes a man desires
to know the event of an action; and then he thinketh of some like action past, and the
events thereof one after another, supposing like events will follow like actions. As he
that foresees what will become of a criminal re-cons what he has seen follow on the like
crime before, having this order of thoughts; the crime, the officer, the prison, the
judge, and the gallows. Which kind of thoughts is called foresight, and prudence, or
providence, and sometimes wisdom; though such conjecture, through the difficulty of
observing all circumstances, be very fallacious. But this is certain: by how much one man
has more experience of things past than another; by so much also he is more prudent, and
his expectations the seldomer fail him. The present only has a being in nature; things
past have a being in the memory only; but things to come have no being at all, the future
being but a fiction of the mind, applying the sequels of actions past to the actions that
are present; which with most certainty is done by him that has most experience, but not
with certainty enough. And though it be called prudence when the event answereth our
expectation; yet in its own nature it is but presumption. For the foresight of things to
come, which is providence, belongs only to him by whose will they are to come. From him
only, and supernaturally, proceeds prophecy. The best prophet naturally is the best
guesser; and the best guesser, he that is most versed and studied in the matters he
guesses at, for he hath most signs to guess by. |
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[36] A sign is the event
antecedent of the consequent; and contrarily, the consequent of the antecedent, when the
like consequences have been observed before: and the oftener they have been observed, the
less uncertain is the sign. And therefore he that has most experience in any kind of
business has most signs whereby to guess at the future time, and consequently is the most
prudent: and so much more prudent than he that is new in that kind of business, as not to
be equalled by any advantage of natural and extemporary wit, though perhaps many young men
think the contrary. |
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[37] Nevertheless, it is not
prudence that distinguisheth man from beast. There be beasts that at a year old observe
more and pursue that which is for their good more prudently than a child can do at ten. |
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[38] As prudence is a
presumption of the future, contracted from the experience of time past: so there is a
presumption of things past taken from other things, not future, but past also. For he that
hath seen by what courses and degrees a flourishing state hath first come into civil war,
and then to ruin; upon the sight of the ruins of any other state will guess the like war
and the like courses have been there also. But this conjecture has the same uncertainty
almost with the conjecture of the future, both being grounded only upon experience. |
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[39] There is no other act
of man's mind, that I can remember, naturally planted in him, so as to need no other thing
to the exercise of it but to be born a man, and live with the use of his five senses.
Those other faculties, of which I shall speak by and by, and which seem proper to man
only, are acquired and increased by study and industry, and of most men learned by
instruction and discipline, and proceed all from the invention of words and speech. For
besides sense, and thoughts, and the train of thoughts, the mind of man has no other
motion; though by the help of speech, and method, the same faculties may be improved to
such a height as to distinguish men from all other living creatures. |
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[40] Whatsoever we imagine
is finite. Therefore there is no idea or conception of anything we call infinite. No man
can have in his mind an image of infinite magnitude; nor conceive infinite swiftness,
infinite time, or infinite force, or infinite power. When we say anything is infinite, we
signify only that we are not able to conceive the ends and bounds of the thing named,
having no conception of the thing, but of our own inability. And therefore the name of God
is used, not to make us conceive Him (for He is incomprehensible, and His greatness and
power are unconceivable), but that we may honour Him. Also because whatsoever, as I said
before, we conceive has been perceived first by sense, either all at once, or by parts, a
man can have no thought representing anything not subject to sense. No man therefore can
conceive anything, but he must conceive it in some place; and endued with some determinate
magnitude; and which may be divided into parts; nor that anything is all in this place,
and all in another place at the same time; nor that two or more things can be in one and
the same place at once: for none of these things ever have or can be incident to sense,
but are absurd speeches, taken upon credit, without any signification at all, from
deceived philosophers and deceived, or deceiving, Schoolmen. |
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[41] CHAPTER IV OF SPEECH |
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[42] THE INVENTION of
printing, though ingenious, compared with the invention of letters is no great matter. But
who was the first that found the use of letters is not known. He that first brought them
into Greece, men say, was Cadmus, the son of Agenor, King of Phoenicia. A profitable
invention for continuing the memory of time past, and the conjunction of mankind dispersed
into so many and distant regions of the earth; and withal difficult, as proceeding from a
watchful observation of the diverse motions of the tongue, palate, lips, and other organs
of speech; whereby to make as many differences of characters to remember them. But the
most noble and profitable invention of all other was that of speech, consisting of names
or appellations, and their connexion; whereby men register their thoughts, recall them
when they are past, and also declare them one to another for mutual utility and
conversation; without which there had been amongst men neither Commonwealth, nor society,
nor contract, nor peace, no more than amongst lions, bears, and wolves. The first author
of speech was God himself, that instructed Adam how to name such creatures as He presented
to his sight; for the Scripture goeth no further in this matter. But this was sufficient
to direct him to add more names, as the experience and use of the creatures should give
him occasion; and to join them in such manner by degrees as to make himself understood;
and so by succession of time, so much language might be gotten as he had found use for,
though not so copious as an orator or philosopher has need of. For I do not find anything
in the Scripture out of which, directly or by consequence, can be gathered that Adam was
taught the names of all figures, numbers, measures, colours, sounds, fancies, relations;
much less the names of words and speech, as general, special, affirmative, negative,
interrogative, optative, infinitive, all which are useful; and least of all, of entity,
intentionality, quiddity, and other insignificant words of the school. |
|
[43] But all this language
gotten, and augmented by Adam and his posterity, was again lost at the tower of Babel,
when by the hand of God every man was stricken for his rebellion with an oblivion of his
former language. And being hereby forced to disperse themselves into several parts of the
world, it must needs be that the diversity of tongues that now is, proceeded by degrees
from them in such manner as need, the mother of all inventions, taught them, and in tract
of time grew everywhere more copious. |
|
[44] The general use of
speech is to transfer our mental discourse into verbal, or the train of our thoughts into
a train of words, and that for two commodities; whereof one is the registering of the
consequences of our thoughts, which being apt to slip out of our memory and put us to a
new labour, may again be recalled by such words as they were marked by. So that the first
use of names is to serve for marks or notes of remembrance. Another is when many use the
same words to signify, by their connexion and order one to another, what they conceive or
think of each matter; and also what they desire, fear, or have any other passion for. And
for this use they are called signs. Special uses of speech are these: first, to register
what by cogitation we find to be the cause of anything, present or past; and what we find
things present or past may produce, or effect; which, in sum, is acquiring of arts.
Secondly, to show to others that knowledge which we have attained; which is to counsel and
teach one another. Thirdly, to make known to others our wills and purposes that we may
have the mutual help of one another. Fourthly, to please and delight ourselves, and
others, by playing with our words, for pleasure or ornament, innocently. |
|
[45] To these uses, there
are also four correspondent abuses. First, when men register their thoughts wrong by the
inconstancy of the signification of their words; by which they register for their
conceptions that which they never conceived, and so deceive themselves. Secondly, when
they use words metaphorically; that is, in other sense than that they are ordained for,
and thereby deceive others. Thirdly, when by words they declare that to be their will
which is not. Fourthly, when they use them to grieve one another: for seeing nature hath
armed living creatures, some with teeth, some with horns, and some with hands, to grieve
an enemy, it is but an abuse of speech to grieve him with the tongue, unless it be one
whom we are obliged to govern; and then it is not to grieve, but to correct and amend. |
|
[46] The manner how speech
serveth to the remembrance of the consequence of causes and effects consisteth in the
imposing of names, and the connexion of them. |
|
[47] Of names, some are
proper, and singular to one only thing; as Peter, John, this man, this tree: and some are
common to many things; as man, horse, tree; every of which, though but one name, is
nevertheless the name of diverse particular things; in respect of all which together, it
is called a universal, there being nothing in the world universal but names; for the
things named are every one of them individual and singular. |
|
[48] One universal name is
imposed on many things for their similitude in some quality, or other accident: and
whereas a proper name bringeth to mind one thing only, universals recall any one of those
many. |
|
[49] And of names universal,
some are of more and some of less extent, the larger comprehending the less large; and
some again of equal extent, comprehending each other reciprocally. As for example, the
name body is of larger signification than the word man, and comprehendeth it; and the
names man and rational are of equal extent, comprehending mutually one another. But here
we must take notice that by a name is not always understood, as in grammar, one only word,
but sometimes by circumlocution many words together. For all these words, He that in his
actions observeth the laws of his country, make but one name, equivalent to this one word,
just. |
|
[50] By this imposition of
names, some of larger, some of stricter signification, we turn the reckoning of the
consequences of things imagined in the mind into a reckoning of the consequences of
appellations. For example, a man that hath no use of speech at all, (such as is born and
remains perfectly deaf and dumb), if he set before his eyes a triangle, and by it two
right angles (such as are the corners of a square figure), he may by meditation compare
and find that the three angles of that triangle are equal to those two right angles that
stand by it. But if another triangle be shown him different in shape from the former, he
cannot know without a new labour whether the three angles of that also be equal to the
same. But he that hath the use of words, when he observes that such equality was
consequent, not to the length of the sides, nor to any other particular thing in his
triangle; but only to this, that the sides were straight, and the angles three, and that
that was all, for which he named it a triangle; will boldly conclude universally that such
equality of angles is in all triangles whatsoever, and register his invention in these
general terms: Every triangle hath its three angles equal to two right angles. And thus
the consequence found in one particular comes to be registered and remembered as a
universal rule; and discharges our mental reckoning of time and place, and delivers us
from all labour of the mind, saving the first; and makes that which was found true here,
and now, to be true in all times and places. |
|
[51] But the use of words in
registering our thoughts is in nothing so evident as in numbering. A natural fool that
could never learn by heart the order of numeral words, as one, two, and three, may observe
every stroke of the clock, and nod to it, or say one, one, one, but can never know what
hour it strikes. And it seems there was a time when those names of number were not in use;
and men were fain to apply their fingers of one or both hands to those things they desired
to keep account of; and that thence it proceeded that now our numeral words are but ten,
in any nation, and in some but five, and then they begin again. And he that can tell ten,
if he recite them out of order, will lose himself, and not know when he has done: much
less will he be able to add, and subtract, and perform all other operations of arithmetic.
So that without words there is no possibility of reckoning of numbers; much less of
magnitudes, of swiftness, of force, and other things, the reckonings whereof are necessary
to the being or well-being of mankind. |
|
[52] When two names are
joined together into a consequence, or affirmation, as thus, A man is a living creature;
or thus, If he be a man, he is a living creature; if the latter name living creature
signify all that the former name man signifieth, then the affirmation, or consequence, is
true; otherwise false. For true and false are attributes of speech, not of things. And
where speech is not, there is neither truth nor falsehood. Error there may be, as when we
expect that which shall not be, or suspect what has not been; but in neither case can a
man be charged with untruth. |
|
[53] Seeing then that truth
consisteth in the right ordering of names in our affirmations, a man that seeketh precise
truth had need to remember what every name he uses stands for, and to place it
accordingly; or else he will find himself entangled in words, as a bird in lime twigs; the
more he struggles, the more belimed. And therefore in geometry (which is the only science
that it hath pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind), men begin at settling the
significations of their words; which settling of significations, they call definitions,
and place them in the beginning of their reckoning. |
|
[54] By this it appears how
necessary it is for any man that aspires to true knowledge to examine the definitions of
former authors; and either to correct them, where they are negligently set down, or to
make them himself. For the errors of definitions multiply themselves, according as the
reckoning proceeds, and lead men into absurdities, which at last they see, but cannot
avoid, without reckoning anew from the beginning; in which lies the foundation of their
errors. From whence it happens that they which trust to books do as they that cast up many
little sums into a greater, without considering whether those little sums were rightly
cast up or not; and at last finding the error visible, and not mistrusting their first
grounds, know not which way to clear themselves, spend time in fluttering over their
books; as birds that entering by the chimney, and finding themselves enclosed in a
chamber, flutter at the false light of a glass window, for want of wit to consider which
way they came in. So that in the right definition of names lies the first use of speech;
which is the acquisition of science: and in wrong, or no definitions, lies the first
abuse; from which proceed all false and senseless tenets; which make those men that take
their instruction from the authority of books, and not from their own meditation, to be as
much below the condition of ignorant men as men endued with true science are above it. For
between true science and erroneous doctrines, ignorance is in the middle. Natural sense
and imagination are not subject to absurdity. Nature itself cannot err: and as men abound
in copiousness of language; so they become more wise, or more mad, than ordinary. Nor is
it possible without letters for any man to become either excellently wise or (unless his
memory be hurt by disease, or ill constitution of organs) excellently foolish. For words
are wise men's counters; they do but reckon by them: but they are the money of fools, that
value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other doctor
whatsoever, if but a man. |
|
[55] Subject to names is
whatsoever can enter into or be considered in an account, and be added one to another to
make a sum, or subtracted one from another and leave a remainder. The Latins called
accounts of money rationes, and accounting, ratiocinatio: and that which we in bills or
books of account call items, they called nomina; that is, names: and thence it seems to
proceed that they extended the word ratio to the faculty of reckoning in all other things.
The Greeks have but one word, logos, for both speech and reason; not that they thought
there was no speech without reason, but no reasoning without speech; and the act of
reasoning they called syllogism; which signifieth summing up of the consequences of one
saying to another. And because the same things may enter into account for diverse
accidents, their names are (to show that diversity) diversely wrested and diversified.
This diversity of names may be reduced to four general heads. |
|
[56] First, a thing may
enter into account for matter, or body; as living, sensible, rational, hot, cold, moved,
quiet; with all which names the word matter, or body, is understood; all such being names
of matter. |
|
[57] Secondly, it may enter
into account, or be considered, for some accident or quality which we conceive to be in
it; as for being moved, for being so long, for being hot, etc.; and then, of the name of
the thing itself, by a little change or wresting, we make a name for that accident which
we consider; and for living put into the account life; for moved, motion; for hot, heat;
for long, length, and the like: and all such names are the names of the accidents and
properties by which one matter and body is distinguished from another. These are called
names abstract, because severed, not from matter, but from the account of matter. |
|
[58] Thirdly, we bring into
account the properties of our own bodies, whereby we make such distinction: as when
anything is seen by us, we reckon not the thing itself, but the sight, the colour, the
idea of it in the fancy; and when anything is heard, we reckon it not, but the hearing or
sound only, which is our fancy or conception of it by the ear: and such are names of
fancies. |
|
[59] Fourthly, we bring into
account, consider, and give names, to names themselves, and to speeches: for, general,
universal, special, equivocal, are names of names. And affirmation, interrogation,
commandment, narration, syllogism, sermon, oration, and many other such are names of
speeches. And this is all the variety of names positive; which are put to mark somewhat
which is in nature, or may be feigned by the mind of man, as bodies that are, or may be
conceived to be; or of bodies, the properties that are, or may be feigned to be; or words
and speech. |
|
[60] There be also other
names, called negative; which are notes to signify that a word is not the name of the
thing in question; as these words: nothing, no man, infinite, indocible, three want four,
and the like; which are nevertheless of use in reckoning, or in correcting of reckoning,
and call to mind our past cogitations, though they be not names of anything; because they
make us refuse to admit of names not rightly used. |
|
[61] All other names are but
insignificant sounds; and those of two sorts. One, when they are new, and yet their
meaning not explained by definition; whereof there have been abundance coined by Schoolmen
and puzzled philosophers. |
|
[62] Another, when men make
a name of two names, whose significations are contradictory and inconsistent; as this
name, an incorporeal body, or, which is all one, an incorporeal substance, and a great
number more. For whensoever any affirmation is false, the two names of which it is
composed, put together and made one, signify nothing at all. For example, if it be a false
affirmation to say a quadrangle is round, the word round quadrangle signifies nothing, but
is a mere sound. So likewise if it be false to say that virtue can be poured, or blown up
and down, the words inpoured virtue, inblown virtue, are as absurd and insignificant as a
round quadrangle. And therefore you shall hardly meet with a senseless and insignificant
word that is not made up of some Latin or Greek names. Frenchman seldom hears our Saviour
called by the name of Parole, but by the name of Verbe often; yet Verbe and Parole differ
no more but that one is Latin, the other French. |
|
[63] When a man, upon the
hearing of any speech, hath those thoughts which the words of that speech, and their
connexion, were ordained and constituted to signify, then he is said to understand it:
understanding being nothing else but conception caused by speech. And therefore if speech
be peculiar to man, as for ought I know it is, then is understanding peculiar to him also.
And therefore of absurd and false affirmations, in case they be universal, there can be no
understanding; though many think they understand then, when they do but repeat the words
softly, or con them in their mind. |
|
[64] What kinds of speeches
signify the appetites, aversions, and passions of man's mind, and of their use and abuse,
I shall speak when I have spoken of the passions. |
|
[65] The names of such
things as affect us, that is, which please and displease us, because all men be not alike
affected with the same thing, nor the same man at all times, are in the common discourses
of men of inconstant signification. For seeing all names are imposed to signify our
conceptions, and all our affections are but conceptions; when we conceive the same things
differently, we can hardly avoid different naming of them. For though the nature of that
we conceive be the same; yet the diversity of our reception of it, in respect of different
constitutions of body and prejudices of opinion, gives everything a tincture of our
different passions. And therefore in reasoning, a man must take heed of words; which,
besides the signification of what we imagine of their nature, have a signification also of
the nature, disposition, and interest of the speaker; such as are the names of virtues and
vices: for one man calleth wisdom what another calleth fear; and one cruelty what another
justice; one prodigality what another magnanimity; and one gravity what another stupidity,
etc. And therefore such names can never be true grounds of any ratiocination. No more can
metaphors and tropes of speech: but these are less dangerous because they profess their
inconstancy, which the other do not. |
|
[66] CHAPTER V OF REASON AND
SCIENCE |
|
[67] WHEN man reasoneth, he
does nothing else but conceive a sum total, from addition of parcels; or conceive a
remainder, from subtraction of one sum from another: which, if it be done by words, is
conceiving of the consequence of the names of all the parts, to the name of the whole; or
from the names of the whole and one part, to the name of the other part. And though in
some things, as in numbers, besides adding and subtracting, men name other operations, as
multiplying and dividing; yet they are the same: for multiplication is but adding together
of things equal; and division, but subtracting of one thing, as often as we can. These
operations are not incident to numbers only, but to all manner of things that can be added
together, and taken one out of another. For as arithmeticians teach to add and subtract in
numbers, so the geometricians teach the same in lines, figures (solid and superficial),
angles, proportions, times, degrees of swiftness, force, power, and the like; the
logicians teach the same in consequences of words, adding together two names to make an
affirmation, and two affirmations to make a syllogism, and many syllogisms to make a
demonstration; and from the sum, or conclusion of a syllogism, they subtract one
proposition to find the other. Writers of politics add together pactions to find men's
duties; and lawyers, laws and facts to find what is right and wrong in the actions of
private men. In sum, in what matter soever there is place for addition and subtraction,
there also is place for reason; and where these have no place, there reason has nothing at
all to do. |
|
[68] Out of all which we may
define (that is to say determine) what that is which is meant by this word reason when we
reckon it amongst the faculties of the mind. For reason, in this sense, is nothing but
reckoning (that is, adding and subtracting) of the consequences of general names agreed
upon for the marking and signifying of our thoughts; I say marking them, when we reckon by
ourselves; and signifying, when we demonstrate or approve our reckonings to other men. |
|
[69] And as in arithmetic
unpractised men must, and professors themselves may often, err, and cast up false; so also
in any other subject of reasoning, the ablest, most attentive, and most practised men may
deceive themselves, and infer false conclusions; not but that reason itself is always
right reason, as well as arithmetic is a certain and infallible art: but no one man's
reason, nor the reason of any one number of men, makes the certainty; no more than an
account is therefore well cast up because a great many men have unanimously approved it.
And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own
accord set up for right reason the reason of some arbitrator, or judge, to whose sentence
they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for
want of a right reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind
soever: and when men that think themselves wiser than all others clamour and demand right
reason for judge, yet seek no more but that things should be determined by no other men's
reason but their own, it is as intolerable in the society of men, as it is in play after
trump is turned to use for trump on every occasion that suit whereof they have most in
their hand. For they do nothing else, that will have every of their passions, as it comes
to bear sway in them, to be taken for right reason, and that in their own controversies:
bewraying their want of right reason by the claim they lay to it. |
|
[70] The use and end of
reason is not the finding of the sum and truth of one, or a few consequences, remote from
the first definitions and settled significations of names; but to begin at these, and
proceed from one consequence to another. For there can be no certainty of the last
conclusion without a certainty of all those affirmations and negations on which it was
grounded and inferred. As when a master of a family, in taking an account, casteth up the
sums of all the bills of expense into one sum; and not regarding how each bill is summed
up, by those that give them in account, nor what it is he pays for, he advantages himself
no more than if he allowed the account in gross, trusting to every of the accountant's
skill and honesty: so also in reasoning of all other things, he that takes up conclusions
on the trust of authors, and doth not fetch them from the first items in every reckoning
(which are the significations of names settled by definitions), loses his labour, and does
not know anything, but only believeth. |
|
[71] When a man reckons
without the use of words, which may be done in particular things, as when upon the sight
of any one thing, we conjecture what was likely to have preceded, or is likely to follow
upon it; if that which he thought likely to follow follows not, or that which he thought
likely to have preceded it hath not preceded it, this is called error; to which even the
most prudent men are subject. But when we reason in words of general signification, and
fall upon a general inference which is false; though it be commonly called error, it is
indeed an absurdity, or senseless speech. For error is but a deception, in presuming that
somewhat is past, or to come; of which, though it were not past, or not to come, yet there
was no impossibility discoverable. But when we make a general assertion, unless it be a
true one, the possibility of it is inconceivable. And words whereby we conceive nothing
but the sound are those we call absurd, insignificant, and nonsense. And therefore if a
man should talk to me of a round quadrangle; or accidents of bread in cheese; or
immaterial substances; or of a free subject; a free will; or any free but free from being
hindered by opposition; I should not say he were in an error, but that his words were
without meaning; that is to say, absurd. |
|
[72] I have said before, in
the second chapter, that a man did excel all other animals in this faculty, that when he
conceived anything whatsoever, he was apt to enquire the consequences of it, and what
effects he could do with it. And now I add this other degree of the same excellence, that
he can by words reduce the consequences he finds to general rules, called theorems, or
aphorisms; that is, he can reason, or reckon, not only in number, but in all other things
whereof one may be added unto or subtracted from another. |
|
[73] But this privilege is
allayed by another; and that is by the privilege of absurdity, to which no living creature
is subject, but men only. And of men, those are of all most subject to it that profess
philosophy. For it is most true that Cicero saith of them somewhere; that there can be
nothing so absurd but may be found in the books of philosophers. And the reason is
manifest. For there is not one of them that begins his ratiocination from the definitions
or explications of the names they are to use; which is a method that hath been used only
in geometry, whose conclusions have thereby been made indisputable. |
|
[74] 1. The first cause of
absurd conclusions I ascribe to the want of method; in that they begin not their
ratiocination from definitions; that is, from settled significations of their words: as if
they could cast account without knowing the value of the numeral words, one, two, and
three. |
|
[75] And whereas all bodies
enter into account upon diverse considerations, which I have mentioned in the precedent
chapter, these considerations being diversely named, diverse absurdities proceed from the
confusion and unfit connexion of their names into assertions. And therefore, |
|
[76] 2. The second cause of
absurd assertions, I ascribe to the giving of names of bodies to accidents; or of
accidents to bodies; as they do that say, faith is infused, or inspired; when nothing can
be poured, or breathed into anything, but body; and that extension is body; that phantasms
are spirits, etc. |
|
[77] 3. The third I ascribe
to the giving of the names of the accidents of bodies without us to the accidents of our
own bodies; as they do that say, the colour is in the body; the sound is in the air, etc. |
|
[78] 4. The fourth, to the
giving of the names of bodies to names, or speeches; as they do that say that there be
things universal; that a living creature is genus, or a general thing, etc. |
|
[79] 5. The fifth, to the
giving of the names of accidents to names and speeches; as they do that say, the nature of
a thing is its definition; a man's command is his will; and the like. |
|
[80] 6. The sixth, to the
use of metaphors, tropes, and other rhetorical figures, instead of words proper. For
though it be lawful to say, for example, in common speech, the way goeth, or leadeth
hither, or thither; the proverb says this or that (whereas ways cannot go, nor proverbs
speak); yet in reckoning, and seeking of truth, such speeches are not to be admitted. |
|
[81] 7. The seventh, to
names that signify nothing, but are taken up and learned by rote from the Schools, as
hypostatical, transubstantiate, consubstantiate, eternal-now, and the like canting of
Schoolmen. |
|
[82] To him that can avoid
these things, it is not easy to fall into any absurdity, unless it be by the length of an
account; wherein he may perhaps forget what went before. For all men by nature reason
alike, and well, when they have good principles. For who is so stupid as both to mistake
in geometry, and also to persist in it, when another detects his error to him? |
|
[83] By this it appears that
reason is not, as sense and memory, born with us; nor gotten by experience only, as
prudence is; but attained by industry: first in apt imposing of names; and secondly by
getting a good and orderly method in proceeding from the elements, which are names, to
assertions made by connexion of one of them to another; and so to syllogisms, which are
the connexions of one assertion to another, till we come to a knowledge of all the
consequences of names appertaining to the subject in hand; and that is it, men call
science. And whereas sense and memory are but knowledge of fact, which is a thing past and
irrevocable, science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon
another; by which, out of that we can presently do, we know how to do something else when
we will, or the like, another time: because when we see how anything comes about, upon
what causes, and by what manner; when the like causes come into our power, we see how to
make it produce the like effects. |
|
[84] Children therefore are
not endued with reason at all, till they have attained the use of speech, but are called
reasonable creatures for the possibility apparent of having the use of reason in time to
come. And the most part of men, though they have the use of reasoning a little way, as in
numbering to some degree; yet it serves them to little use in common life, in which they
govern themselves, some better, some worse, according to their differences of experience,
quickness of memory, and inclinations to several ends; but specially according to good or
evil fortune, and the errors of one another. For as for science, or certain rules of their
actions, they are so far from it that they know not what it is. Geometry they have thought
conjuring: but for other sciences, they who have not been taught the beginnings, and some
progress in them, that they may see how they be acquired and generated, are in this point
like children that, having no thought of generation, are made believe by the women that
their brothers and sisters are not born, but found in the garden. |
|
[85] But yet they that have
no science are in better and nobler condition with their natural prudence than men that,
by misreasoning, or by trusting them that reason wrong, fall upon false and absurd general
rules. For ignorance of causes, and of rules, does not set men so far out of their way as
relying on false rules, and taking for causes of what they aspire to, those that are not
so, but rather causes of the contrary. |
|
[86] To conclude, the light
of humane minds is perspicuous words, but by exact definitions first snuffed, and purged
from ambiguity; reason is the pace; increase of science, the way; and the benefit of
mankind, the end. And, on the contrary, metaphors, and senseless and ambiguous words are
like ignes fatui; and reasoning upon them is wandering amongst innumerable absurdities;
and their end, contention and sedition, or contempt. |
|
[87] As much experience is
prudence, so is much science sapience. For though we usually have one name of wisdom for
them both; yet the Latins did always distinguish between prudentia and sapientia;
ascribing the former to experience, the latter to science. But to make their difference
appear more clearly, let us suppose one man endued with an excellent natural use and
dexterity in handling his arms; and another to have added to that dexterity an acquired
science of where he can offend, or be offended by his adversary, in every possible posture
or guard: the ability of the former would be to the ability of the latter, as prudence to
sapience; both useful, but the latter infallible. But they that, trusting only to the
authority of books, follow the blind blindly, are like him that, trusting to the false
rules of a master of fence, ventures presumptuously upon an adversary that either kills or
disgraces him. |
|
[88] The signs of science
are some certain and infallible; some, uncertain. Certain, when he that pretendeth the
science of anything can teach the same; that is to say, demonstrate the truth thereof
perspicuously to another: uncertain, when only some particular events answer to his
pretence, and upon many occasions prove so as he says they must. Signs of prudence are all
uncertain; because to observe by experience, and remember all circumstances that may alter
the success, is impossible. But in any business, whereof a man has not infallible science
to proceed by, to forsake his own natural judgment, and be guided by general sentences
read in authors, and subject to many exceptions, is a sign of folly, and generally scorned
by the name of pedantry. And even of those men themselves that in councils of the
Commonwealth love to show their reading of politics and history, very few do it in their
domestic affairs where their particular interest is concerned, having prudence enough for
their private affairs; but in public they study more the reputation of their own wit than
the success of another's business. |
|
[89] CHAPTER VI OF THE
INTERIOR BEGINNINGS OF VOLUNTARY MOTIONS, COMMONLY CALLED THE PASSIONS; AND THE SPEECHES
BY WHICH THEY ARE EXPRESSED |
|
[90] THERE be in animals two
sorts of motions peculiar to them: One called vital, begun in generation, and continued
without interruption through their whole life; such as are the course of the blood, the
pulse, the breathing, the concoction, nutrition, excretion, etc.; to which motions there
needs no help of imagination: the other is animal motion, otherwise called voluntary
motion; as to go, to speak, to move any of our limbs, in such manner as is first fancied
in our minds. That sense is motion in the organs and interior parts of man's body, caused
by the action of the things we see, hear, etc., and that fancy is but the relics of the
same motion, remaining after sense, has been already said in the first and second
chapters. And because going, speaking, and the like voluntary motions depend always upon a
precedent thought of whither, which way, and what, it is evident that the imagination is
the first internal beginning of all voluntary motion. And although unstudied men do not
conceive any motion at all to be there, where the thing moved is invisible, or the space
it is moved in is, for the shortness of it, insensible; yet that doth not hinder but that
such motions are. For let a space be never so little, that which is moved over a greater
space, whereof that little one is part, must first be moved over that. These small
beginnings of motion within the body of man, before they appear in walking, speaking,
striking, and other visible actions, are commonly called endeavour. |
|
[91] This endeavour, when it
is toward something which causes it, is called appetite, or desire, the latter being the
general name, and the other oftentimes restrained to signify the desire of food, namely
hunger and thirst. And when the endeavour is from ward something, it is generally called
aversion. These words appetite and aversion we have from the Latins; and they both of them
signify the motions, one of approaching, the other of retiring. So also do the Greek words
for the same, which are orme and aphorme. For Nature itself does often press upon men
those truths which afterwards, when they look for somewhat beyond Nature, they stumble at.
For the Schools find in mere appetite to go, or move, no actual motion at all; but because
some motion they must acknowledge, they call it metaphorical motion, which is but an
absurd speech; for though words may be called metaphorical, bodies and motions cannot. |
|
[92] That which men desire
they are said to love, and to hate those things for which they have aversion. So that
desire and love are the same thing; save that by desire, we signify the absence of the
object; by love, most commonly the presence of the same. So also by aversion, we signify
the absence; and by hate, the presence of the object. |
|
[93] Of appetites and
aversions, some are born with men; as appetite of food, appetite of excretion, and
exoneration (which may also and more properly be called aversions, from somewhat they feel
in their bodies), and some other appetites, not many. The rest, which are appetites of
particular things, proceed from experience and trial of their effects upon themselves or
other men. For of things we know not at all, or believe not to be, we can have no further
desire than to taste and try. But aversion we have for things, not only which we know have
hurt us, but also that we do not know whether they will hurt us, or not. |
|
[94] Those things which we
neither desire nor hate, we are said to contemn: contempt being nothing else but an
immobility or contumacy of the heart in resisting the action of certain things; and
proceeding from that the heart is already moved otherwise, by other more potent objects,
or from want of experience of them. |
|
[95] And because the
constitution of a man's body is in continual mutation, it is impossible that all the same
things should always cause in him the same appetites and aversions: much less can all men
consent in the desire of almost any one and the same object. |
|
[96] But whatsoever is the
object of any man's appetite or desire, that is it which he for his part calleth good; and
the object of his hate and aversion, evil; and of his contempt, vile and inconsiderable.
For these words of good, evil, and contemptible are ever used with relation to the person
that useth them: there being nothing simply and absolutely so; nor any common rule of good
and evil to be taken from the nature of the objects themselves; but from the person of the
man, where there is no Commonwealth; or, in a Commonwealth, from the person that
representeth it; or from an arbitrator or judge, whom men disagreeing shall by consent set
up and make his sentence the rule thereof. |
|
[97] The Latin tongue has
two words whose significations approach to those of good and evil, but are not precisely
the same; and those are pulchrum and turpe. Whereof the former signifies that which by
some apparent signs promiseth good; and the latter, that which promiseth evil. But in our
tongue we have not so general names to express them by. But for pulchrum we say in some
things, fair; in others, beautiful, or handsome, or gallant, or honourable, or comely, or
amiable: and for turpe; foul, deformed, ugly, base, nauseous, and the like, as the subject
shall require; all which words, in their proper places, signify nothing else but the mien,
or countenance, that promiseth good and evil. So that of good there be three kinds: good
in the promise, that is pulchrum; good in effect, as the end desired, which is called
jucundum, delightful; and good as the means, which is called utile, profitable; and as
many of evil: for evil in promise is that they call turpe; evil in effect and end is
molestum, unpleasant, troublesome; and evil in the means, inutile, unprofitable, hurtful. |
|
[98] As in sense that which
is really within us is, as I have said before, only motion, caused by the action of
external objects but in appearance; to the sight, light and colour; to the ear, sound; to
the nostril, odour, etc.: so, when the action of the same object is continued from the
eyes, ears, and other organs to the heart, the real effect there is nothing but motion, or
endeavour; which consisteth in appetite or aversion to or from the object moving. But the
appearance or sense of that motion is that we either call delight or trouble of mind. |
|
[99] This motion, which is
called appetite, and for the appearance of it delight and pleasure, seemeth to be a
corroboration of vital motion, and a help thereunto; and therefore such things as caused
delight were not improperly called jucunda (a juvando), from helping or fortifying; and
the contrary, molesta, offensive, from hindering and troubling the motion vital. |
|
[100] Pleasure therefore,
or delight, is the appearance or sense of good; and molestation or displeasure, the
appearance or sense of evil. And consequently all appetite, desire, and love is
accompanied with some delight more or less; and all hatred and aversion with more or less
displeasure and offence. |
|
[101] Of pleasures, or
delights, some arise from the sense of an object present; and those may be called
pleasures of sense (the word sensual, as it is used by those only that condemn them,
having no place till there be laws). Of this kind are all onerations and exonerations of
the body; as also all that is pleasant, in the sight, hearing, smell, taste, or touch.
Others arise from the expectation that proceeds from foresight of the end or consequence
of things, whether those things in the sense please or displease: and these are pleasures
of the mind of him that draweth in those consequences, and are generally called joy. In
the like manner, displeasures are some in the sense, and called pain; others, in the
expectation of consequences, and are called grief. |
|
[102] These simple passions
called appetite, desire, love, aversion, hate, joy, and grief have their names for diverse
considerations diversified. At first, when they one succeed another, they are diversely
called from the opinion men have of the likelihood of attaining what they desire.
Secondly, from the object loved or hated. Thirdly, from the consideration of many of them
together. Fourthly, from the alteration or succession itself. |
|
[103] For appetite with an
opinion of attaining is called hope. |
|
[104] The same, without
such opinion, despair. |
|
[105] Aversion, with
opinion of hurt from the object, fear. |
|
[106] The same, with hope
of avoiding that hurt by resistence, courage. |
|
[107] Sudden courage,
anger. |
|
[108] Constant hope,
confidence of ourselves. |
|
[109] Constant despair,
diffidence of ourselves. |
|
[110] Anger for great hurt
done to another, when we conceive the same to be done by injury, indignation. |
|
[111] Desire of good to
another, benevolence, good will, charity. If to man generally, good nature. |
|
[112] Desire of riches,
covetousness: a name used always in signification of blame, because men contending for
them are displeased with one another's attaining them; though the desire in itself be to
be blamed, or allowed, according to the means by which those riches are sought. |
|
[113] Desire of office, or
precedence, ambition: a name used also in the worse sense, for the reason before
mentioned. |
|
[114] Desire of things that
conduce but a little to our ends, and fear of things that are but of little hindrance,
pusillanimity. |
|
[115] Contempt of little
helps, and hindrances, magnanimity. |
|
[116] Magnanimity in danger
of death, or wounds, valour, fortitude. |
|
[117] Magnanimity in the
use of riches, liberality. |
|
[118] Pusillanimity in the
same, wretchedness, miserableness, or parsimony, as it is liked, or disliked. |
|
[119] Love of persons for
society, kindness. |
|
[120] Love of persons for
pleasing the sense only, natural lust. |
|
[121] Love of the same
acquired from rumination, that is, imagination of pleasure past, luxury. |
|
[122] Love of one
singularly, with desire to be singularly beloved, the passion of love. The same, with fear
that the love is not mutual, jealousy. |
|
[123] Desire by doing hurt
to another to make him condemn some fact of his own, revengefulness. |
|
[124] Desire to know why,
and how, curiosity; such as is in no living creature but man: so that man is
distinguished, not only by his reason, but also by this singular passion from other
animals; in whom the appetite of food, and other pleasures of sense, by predominance, take
away the care of knowing causes; which is a lust of the mind, that by a perseverance of
delight in the continual and indefatigable generation of knowledge, exceedeth the short
vehemence of any carnal pleasure. |
|
[125] Fear of power
invisible, feigned by the mind, or imagined from tales publicly allowed, religion; not
allowed, superstition. And when the power imagined is truly such as we imagine, true
religion. |
|
[126] Fear without the
apprehension of why, or what, panic terror; called so from the fables that make Pan the
author of them; whereas in truth there is always in him that so feareth, first, some
apprehension of the cause, though the rest run away by example; every one supposing his
fellow to know why. And therefore this passion happens to none but in a throng, or
multitude of people. |
|
[127] Joy from apprehension
of novelty, admiration; proper to man, because it excites the appetite of knowing the
cause. |
|
[128] Joy arising from
imagination of a man's own power and ability is that exultation of the mind which is
called glorying: which, if grounded upon the experience of his own former actions, is the
same with confidence: but if grounded on the flattery of others, or only supposed by
himself, for delight in the consequences of it, is called vainglory: which name is
properly given; because a well-grounded confidence begetteth attempt; whereas the
supposing of power does not, and is therefore rightly called vain. |
|
[129] Grief, from opinion
of want of power, is called dejection of mind. |
|
[130] The vainglory which
consisteth in the feigning or supposing of abilities in ourselves, which we know are not,
is most incident to young men, and nourished by the histories or fictions of gallant
persons; and is corrected oftentimes by age and employment. |
|
[131] Sudden glory is the
passion which maketh those grimaces called laughter; and is caused either by some sudden
act of their own that pleaseth them; or by the apprehension of some deformed thing in
another, by comparison whereof they suddenly applaud themselves. And it is incident most
to them that are conscious of the fewest abilities in themselves; who are forced to keep
themselves in their own favour by observing the imperfections of other men. And therefore
much laughter at the defects of others is a sign of pusillanimity. For of great minds one
of the proper works is to help and free others from scorn, and compare themselves only
with the most able. |
|
[132] On the contrary,
sudden dejection is the passion that causeth weeping; and is caused by such accidents as
suddenly take away some vehement hope, or some prop of their power: and they are most
subject to it that rely principally on helps external, such as are women and children.
Therefore, some weep for the loss of friends; others for their unkindness; others for the
sudden stop made to their thoughts of revenge, by reconciliation. But in all cases, both
laughter and weeping are sudden motions, custom taking them both away. For no man laughs
at old jests, or weeps for an old calamity. |
|
[133] Grief for the
discovery of some defect of ability is shame, or the passion that discovereth itself in
blushing, and consisteth in the apprehension of something dishonourable; and in young men
is a sign of the love of good reputation, and commendable: in old men it is a sign of the
same; but because it comes too late, not commendable. |
|
[134] The contempt of good
reputation is called impudence. |
|
[135] Grief for the
calamity of another is pity; and ariseth from the imagination that the like calamity may
befall himself; and therefore is called also compassion, and in the phrase of this present
time a fellow-feeling: and therefore for calamity arriving from great wickedness, the best
men have the least pity; and for the same calamity, those have least pity that think
themselves least obnoxious to the same. |
|
[136] Contempt, or little
sense of the calamity of others, is that which men call cruelty; proceeding from security
of their own fortune. For, that any man should take pleasure in other men's great harms,
without other end of his own, I do not conceive it possible. |
|
[137] Grief for the success
of a competitor in wealth, honour, or other good, if it be joined with endeavour to
enforce our own abilities to equal or exceed him, is called emulation: but joined with
endeavour to supplant or hinder a competitor, envy. |
|
[138] When in the mind of
man appetites and aversions, hopes and fears, concerning one and the same thing, arise
alternately; and diverse good and evil consequences of the doing or omitting the thing
propounded come successively into our thoughts; so that sometimes we have an appetite to
it, sometimes an aversion from it; sometimes hope to be able to do it, sometimes despair,
or fear to attempt it; the whole sum of desires, aversions, hopes and fears, continued
till the thing be either done, or thought impossible, is that we call deliberation. |
|
[139] Therefore of things
past there is no deliberation, because manifestly impossible to be changed; nor of things
known to be impossible, or thought so; because men know or think such deliberation vain.
But of things impossible, which we think possible, we may deliberate, not knowing it is in
vain. And it is called deliberation; because it is a putting an end to the liberty we had
of doing, or omitting, according to our own appetite, or aversion. |
|
[140] This alternate
succession of appetites, aversions, hopes and fears is no less in other living creatures
than in man; and therefore beasts also deliberate. |
|
[141] Every deliberation is
then said to end when that whereof they deliberate is either done or thought impossible;
because till then we retain the liberty of doing, or omitting, according to our appetite,
or aversion. |
|
[142] In deliberation, the
last appetite, or aversion, immediately adhering to the action, or to the omission
thereof, is that we call the will; the act, not the faculty, of willing. And beasts that
have deliberation must necessarily also have will. The definition of the will, given
commonly by the Schools, that it is a rational appetite, is not good. For if it were, then
could there be no voluntary act against reason. For a voluntary act is that which
proceedeth from the will, and no other. But if instead of a rational appetite, we shall
say an appetite resulting from a precedent deliberation, then the definition is the same
that I have given here. Will, therefore, is the last appetite in deliberating. And though
we say in common discourse, a man had a will once to do a thing, that nevertheless he
forbore to do; yet that is properly but an inclination, which makes no action voluntary;
because the action depends not of it, but of the last inclination, or appetite. For if the
intervenient appetites make any action voluntary, then by the same reason all intervenient
aversions should make the same action involuntary; and so one and the same action should
be both voluntary and involuntary. |
|
[143] By this it is
manifest that, not only actions that have their beginning from covetousness, ambition,
lust, or other appetites to the thing propounded, but also those that have their beginning
from aversion, or fear of those consequences that follow the omission, are voluntary
actions. |
|
[144] The forms of speech
by which the passions are expressed are partly the same and partly different from those by
which we express our thoughts. And first generally all passions may be expressed
indicatively; as, I love, I fear, I joy, I deliberate, I will, I command: but some of them
have particular expressions by themselves, which nevertheless are not affirmations, unless
it be when they serve to make other inferences besides that of the passion they proceed
from. Deliberation is expressed subjunctively; which is a speech proper to signify
suppositions, with their consequences; as, If this be done, then this will follow; and
differs not from the language of reasoning, save that reasoning is in general words, but
deliberation for the most part is of particulars. The language of desire, and aversion, is
imperative; as, Do this, forbear that; which when the party is obliged to do, or forbear,
is command; otherwise prayer; or else counsel. The language of vainglory, of indignation,
pity and revengefulness, optative: but of the desire to know, there is a peculiar
expression called interrogative; as, What is it, when shall it, how is it done, and why
so? Other language of the passions I find none: for cursing, swearing, reviling, and the
like do not signify as speech, but as the actions of a tongue accustomed. |
|
[145] These forms of
speech, I say, are expressions or voluntary significations of our passions: but certain
signs they be not; because they may be used arbitrarily, whether they that use them have
such passions or not. The best signs of passions present are either in the countenance,
motions of the body, actions, and ends, or aims, which we otherwise know the man to have. |
|
[146] And because in
deliberation the appetites and aversions are raised by foresight of the good and evil
consequences, and sequels of the action whereof we deliberate, the good or evil effect
thereof dependeth on the foresight of a long chain of consequences, of which very seldom
any man is able to see to the end. But for so far as a man seeth, if the good in those
consequences be greater than the evil, the whole chain is that which writers call apparent
or seeming good. And contrarily, when the evil exceedeth the good, the whole is apparent
or seeming evil: so that he who hath by experience, or reason, the greatest and surest
prospect of consequences, deliberates best himself; and is able, when he will, to give the
best counsel unto others. |
|
[147] Continual success in
obtaining those things which a man from time to time desireth, that is to say, continual
prospering, is that men call felicity; I mean the felicity of this life. For there is no
such thing as perpetual tranquillity of mind, while we live here; because life itself is
but motion, and can never be without desire, nor without fear, no more than without sense.
What kind of felicity God hath ordained to them that devoutly honour him, a man shall no
sooner know than enjoy; being joys that now are as incomprehensible as the word of
Schoolmen, beatifical vision, is unintelligible. |
|
[148] The form of speech
whereby men signify their opinion of the goodness of anything is praise. That whereby they
signify the power and greatness of anything is magnifying. And that whereby they signify
the opinion they have of a man's felicity is by the Greeks called makarismos, for which we
have no name in our tongue. And thus much is sufficient for the present purpose to have
been said of the passions. |
|
[149] CHAPTER VII OF THE
ENDS OR RESOLUTIONS OF DISCOURSE |
|
[150] OF ALL discourse
governed by desire of knowledge, there is at last an end, either by attaining or by giving
over. And in the chain of discourse, wheresoever it be interrupted, there is an end for
that time. |
|
[151] If the discourse be
merely mental, it consisteth of thoughts that the thing will be, and will not be; or that
it has been, and has not been, alternately. So that wheresoever you break off the chain of
a man's discourse, you leave him in a presumption of it will be, or, it will not be; or it
has been, or, has not been. All which is opinion. And that which is alternate appetite, in
deliberating concerning good and evil, the same is alternate opinion in the enquiry of the
truth of past and future. And as the last appetite in deliberation is called the will, so
the last opinion in search of the truth of past and future is called the judgement, or
resolute and final sentence of him that discourseth. And as the whole chain of appetites
alternate in the question of good or bad is called deliberation; so the whole chain of
opinions alternate in the question of true or false is called doubt. |
|
[152] No discourse
whatsoever can end in absolute knowledge of fact, past or to come. For, as for the
knowledge of fact, it is originally sense, and ever after memory. And for the knowledge of
consequence, which I have said before is called science, it is not absolute, but
conditional. No man can know by discourse that this, or that, is, has been, or will be;
which is to know absolutely: but only that if this be, that is; if this has been, that has
been; if this shall be, that shall be; which is to know conditionally: and that not the
consequence of one thing to another, but of one name of a thing to another name of the
same thing. |
|
[153] And therefore, when
the discourse is put into speech, and begins with the definitions of words, and proceeds
by connexion of the same into general affirmations, and of these again into syllogisms,
the end or last sum is called the conclusion; and the thought of the mind by it signified
is that conditional knowledge, or knowledge of the consequence of words, which is commonly
called science. But if the first ground of such discourse be not definitions, or if the
definitions be not rightly joined together into syllogisms, then the end or conclusion is
again opinion, namely of the truth of somewhat said, though sometimes in absurd and
senseless words, without possibility of being understood. When two or more men know of one
and the same fact, they are said to be conscious of it one to another; which is as much as
to know it together. And because such are fittest witnesses of the facts of one another,
or of a third, it was and ever will be reputed a very evil act for any man to speak
against his conscience; or to corrupt or force another so to do: insomuch that the plea of
conscience has been always hearkened unto very diligently in all times. Afterwards, men
made use of the same word metaphorically for the knowledge of their own secret facts and
secret thoughts; and therefore it is rhetorically said that the conscience is a thousand
witnesses. And last of all, men, vehemently in love with their own new opinions, though
never so absurd, and obstinately bent to maintain them, gave those their opinions also
that reverenced name of conscience, as if they would have it seem unlawful to change or
speak against them; and so pretend to know they are true, when they know at most but that
they think so. |
|
[154] When a man's
discourse beginneth not at definitions, it beginneth either at some other contemplation of
his own, and then it is still called opinion, or it beginneth at some saying of another,
of whose ability to know the truth, and of whose honesty in not deceiving, he doubteth
not; and then the discourse is not so much concerning the thing, as the person; and the
resolution is called belief, and faith: faith, in the man; belief, both of the man, and of
the truth of what he says. So that in belief are two opinions; one of the saying of the
man, the other of his virtue. To have faith in, or trust to, or believe a man, signify the
same thing; namely, an opinion of the veracity of the man: but to believe what is said
signifieth only an opinion of the truth of the saying. But we are to observe that this
phrase, I believe in; as also the Latin, credo in; and the Greek, piseno eis, are never
used but in the writings of divines. Instead of them, in other writings are put: I believe
him; I trust him; I have faith in him; I rely on him; and in Latin, credo illi; fido illi;
and in Greek, piseno anto; and that this singularity of the ecclesiastic use of the word
hath raised many disputes about the right object of the Christian faith. |
|
[155] But by believing in,
as it is in the Creed, is meant, not trust in the person, but confession and
acknowledgement of the doctrine. For not only Christians, but all manner of men do so
believe in God as to hold all for truth they hear Him say, whether they understand it or
not, which is all the faith and trust can possibly be had in any person whatsoever; but
they do not all believe the doctrine of the Creed. |
|
[156] From whence we may
infer that when we believe any saying, whatsoever it be, to be true, from arguments taken,
not from the thing itself, or from the principles of natural reason, but from the
authority and good opinion we have of him that hath said it; then is the speaker, or
person we believe in, or trust in, and whose word we take, the object of our faith; and
the honour done in believing is done to him only. And consequently, when we believe that
the Scriptures are the word of God, having no immediate revelation from God Himself, our
belief, faith, and trust is in the Church; whose word we take, and acquiesce therein. And
they that believe that which a prophet relates unto them in the name of God take the word
of the prophet, do honour to him, and in him trust and believe, touching the truth of what
he relateth, whether he be a true or a false prophet. And so it is also with all other
history. For if I should not believe all that is written by historians of the glorious
acts of Alexander or Caesar, I do not think the ghost of Alexander or Caesar had any just
cause to be offended, or anybody else but the historian. If Livy say the gods made once a
cow speak, and we believe it not, we distrust not God therein, but Livy. So that it is
evident that whatsoever we believe, upon no other reason than what is drawn from authority
of men only, and their writings, whether they be sent from God or not, is faith in men
only. |
|
[157] CHAPTER VIII OF THE
VIRTUES COMMONLY CALLED INTELLECTUAL; AND THEIR CONTRARY DEFECTS |
|
[158] VIRTUE generally, in
all sorts of subjects, is somewhat that is valued for eminence; and consisteth in
comparison. For if all things were equally in all men, nothing would be prized. And by
virtues intellectual are always understood such abilities of the mind as men praise,
value, and desire should be in themselves; and go commonly under the name of a good wit;
though the same word, wit, be used also to distinguish one certain ability from the rest. |
|
[159] These virtues are of
two sorts; natural and acquired. By natural, I mean not that which a man hath from his
birth: for that is nothing else but sense; wherein men differ so little one from another,
and from brute beasts, as it is not to be reckoned amongst virtues. But I mean that wit
which is gotten by use only, and experience, without method, culture, or instruction. This
natural wit consisteth principally in two things: celerity of imagining (that is, swift
succession of one thought to another); and steady direction to some approved end. On the
contrary, a slow imagination maketh that defect or fault of the mind which is commonly
called dullness, stupidity, and sometimes by other names that signify slowness of motion,
or difficulty to be moved. |
|
[160] And this difference
of quickness is caused by the difference of men's passions; that love and dislike, some
one thing, some another: and therefore some men's thoughts run one way, some another, and
are held to, observe differently the things that pass through their imagination. And
whereas in this succession of men's thoughts there is nothing to observe in the things
they think on, but either in what they be like one another, or in what they be unlike, or
what they serve for, or how they serve to such a purpose; those that observe their
similitudes, in case they be such as are but rarely observed by others, are said to have a
good wit; by which, in this occasion, is meant a good fancy. But they that observe their
differences, and dissimilitudes, which is called distinguishing, and discerning, and
judging between thing and thing, in case such discerning be not easy, are said to have a
good judgement: and particularly in matter of conversation and business, wherein times,
places, and persons are to be discerned, this virtue is called discretion. The former,
that is, fancy, without the help of judgement, is not commended as a virtue; but the
latter which is judgement, and discretion, is commended for itself, without the help of
fancy. Besides the discretion of times, places, and persons, necessary to a good fancy,
there is required also an often application of his thoughts to their end; that is to say,
to some use to be made of them. This done, he that hath this virtue will be easily fitted
with similitudes that will please, not only by illustration of his discourse, and adorning
it with new and apt metaphors, but also, by the rarity of their invention. But without
steadiness, and direction to some end, great fancy is one kind of madness; such as they
have that, entering into any discourse, are snatched from their purpose by everything that
comes in their thought, into so many and so long digressions and parentheses, that they
utterly lose themselves: which kind of folly I know no particular name for: but the cause
of it is sometimes want of experience; whereby that seemeth to a man new and rare which
doth not so to others: sometimes pusillanimity; by which that seems great to him which
other men think a trifle: and whatsoever is new, or great, and therefore thought fit to be
told, withdraws a man by degrees from the intended way of his discourse. In a good poem,
whether it be epic or dramatic, as also in sonnets, epigrams, and other pieces, both
judgement and fancy are required: but the fancy must be more eminent; because they please
for the extravagancy, but ought not to displease by indiscretion. |
|
[161] In a good history,
the judgement must be eminent; because the goodness consisteth in the choice of the
method, in the truth, and in the choice of the actions that are most profitable to be
known. Fancy has no place, but only in adorning the style. |
|
[162] In orations of
praise, and in invectives, the fancy is predominant; because the design is not truth, but
to honour or dishonour; which is done by noble or by vile comparisons. The judgement does
but suggest what circumstances make an action laudable or culpable. |
|
[163] In hortatives and
pleadings, as truth or disguise serveth best to the design in hand, so is the judgement or
the fancy most required. |
|
[164] In demonstration, in
council, and all rigorous search of truth, sometimes does all; except sometimes the
understanding have need to be opened by some apt similitude, and then there is so much use
of fancy. But for metaphors, they are in this case utterly excluded. For seeing they
openly profess deceit, to admit them into council, or reasoning, were manifest folly. |
|
[165] And in any discourse
whatsoever, if the defect of discretion be apparent, how extravagant soever the fancy be,
the whole discourse will be taken for a sign of want of wit; and so will it never when the
discretion is manifest, though the fancy be never so ordinary. |
|
[166] The secret thoughts
of a man run over all things holy, prophane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without
shame, or blame; which verbal discourse cannot do, farther than the judgement shall
approve of the time, place, and persons. An anatomist or physician may speak or write his
judgement of unclean things; because it is not to please, but profit: but for another man
to write his extravagant and pleasant fancies of the same is as if a man, from being
tumbled into the dirt, should come and present himself before good company. And it is the
want of discretion that makes the difference. Again, in professed remissness of mind, and
familiar company, a man may play with the sounds and equivocal significations of words,
and that many times with encounters of extraordinary fancy; but in a sermon, or in public,
or before persons unknown, or whom we ought to reverence, there is no jingling of words
that will not be accounted folly: and the difference is only in the want of discretion. So
that where wit is wanting, it is not fancy that is wanting, but discretion. Judgement,
therefore, without fancy is wit, but fancy without judgement, not. |
|
[167] When the thoughts of
a man that has a design in hand, running over a multitude of things, observes how they
conduce to that design, or what design they may conduce unto; if his observations be such
as are not easy, or usual, this wit of his is called prudence, and dependeth on much
experience, and memory of the like things and their consequences heretofore. In which
there is not so much difference of men as there is in their fancies and judgements;
because the experience of men equal in age is not much unequal as to the quantity, but
lies in different occasions, every one having his private designs. To govern well a family
and a kingdom are not different degrees of prudence, but different sorts of business; no
more than to draw a picture in little, or as great or greater than the life, are different
degrees of art. A plain husbandman is more prudent in affairs of his own house than a
Privy Counsellor in the affairs of another man. |
|
[168] To prudence, if you
add the use of unjust or dishonest means, such as usually are prompted to men by fear or
want, you have that crooked wisdom which is called craft; which is a sign of
pusillanimity. For magnanimity is contempt of unjust or dishonest helps. And that which
the Latins call versutia (translated into English, shifting), and is a putting off of a
present danger or incommodity by engaging into a greater, as when a man robs one to pay
another, is but a shorter-sighted craft; called versutia, from versura, which signifies
taking money at usury for the present payment of interest. |
|
[169] As for acquired wit
(I mean acquired by method and instruction), there is none but reason; which is grounded
on the right use of speech, and produceth the sciences. But of reason and science, I have
already spoken in the fifth and sixth chapters. |
|
[170] The causes of this
difference of wits are in the passions, and the difference of passions proceedeth partly
from the different constitution of the body, and partly from different education. For if
the difference proceeded from the temper of the brain, and the organs of sense, either
exterior or interior, there would be no less difference of men in their sight, hearing, or
other senses than in their fancies and discretions. It proceeds, therefore, from the
passions; which are different, not only from the difference of men's complexions, but also
from their difference of customs and education. |
|
[171] The passions that
most of all cause the differences of wit are principally the more or less desire of power,
of riches, of knowledge, and of honour. All which may be reduced to the first, that is,
desire of power. For riches, knowledge and honour are but several sorts of power. |
|
[172] And therefore, a man
who has no great passion for any of these things, but is as men term it indifferent;
though he may be so far a good man as to be free from giving offence, yet he cannot
possibly have either a great fancy or much judgement. For the thoughts are to the desires
as scouts and spies to range abroad and find the way to the things desired, all steadiness
of the mind's motion, and all quickness of the same, proceeding from thence. For as to
have no desire is to be dead; so to have weak passions is dullness; and to have passions
indifferently for everything, giddiness and distraction; and to have stronger and more
vehement passions for anything than is ordinarily seen in others is that which men call
madness. |
|
[173] Whereof there be
almost as may kinds as of the passions themselves. Sometimes the extraordinary and
extravagant passion proceedeth from the evil constitution of the organs of the body, or
harm done them; and sometimes the hurt, and indisposition of the organs, is caused by the
vehemence or long continuance of the passion. But in both cases the madness is of one and
the same nature. |
|
[174] The passion whose
violence or continuance maketh madness is either great vainglory, which is commonly called
pride and self-conceit, or great dejection of mind. |
|
[175] Pride subjecteth a
man to anger, the excess whereof is the madness called rage, and fury. And thus it comes
to pass that excessive desire of revenge, when it becomes habitual, hurteth the organs,
and becomes rage: that excessive love, with jealousy, becomes also rage: excessive opinion
of a man's own self, for divine inspiration, for wisdom, learning, form, and the like,
becomes distraction and giddiness: the same, joined with envy, rage: vehement opinion of
the truth of anything, contradicted by others, rage. |
|
[176] Dejection subjects a
man to causeless fears, which is a madness commonly called melancholy apparent also in
diverse manners: as in haunting of solitudes and graves; in superstitious behaviour; and
in fearing some one, some another, particular thing. In sum, all passions that produce
strange and unusual behaviour are called by the general name of madness. But of the
several kinds of madness, he that would take the pains might enrol a legion. And if the
excesses be madness, there is no doubt but the passions themselves, when they tend to
evil, are degrees of the same. |
|
[177] For example, though
the effect of folly, in them that are possessed of an opinion of being inspired, be not
visible always in one man by any very extravagant action that proceedeth from such
passion, yet when many of them conspire together, the rage of the whole multitude is
visible enough. For what argument of madness can there be greater than to clamour, strike,
and throw stones at our best friends? Yet this is somewhat less than such a multitude will
do. For they will clamour, fight against, and destroy those by whom all their lifetime
before they have been protected and secured from injury. And if this be madness in the
multitude, it is the same in every particular man. For as in the midst of the sea, though
a man perceive no sound of that part of the water next him, yet he is well assured that
part contributes as much to the roaring of the sea as any other part of the same quantity:
so also, though we perceive no great unquietness in one or two men, yet we may be well
assured that their singular passions are parts of the seditious roaring of a troubled
nation. And if there were nothing else that bewrayed their madness, yet that very
arrogating such inspiration to themselves is argument enough. If some man in Bedlam should
entertain you with sober discourse, and you desire in taking leave to know what he were
that you might another time requite his civility, and he should tell you he were God the
Father; I think you need expect no extravagant action for argument of his madness. |
|
[178] This opinion of
inspiration, called commonly, private spirit, begins very often from some lucky finding of
an error generally held by others; and not knowing, or not remembering, by what conduct of
reason they came to so singular a truth, as they think it, though it be many times an
untruth they light on, they presently admire themselves as being in the special grace of
God Almighty, who hath revealed the same to them supernaturally by his Spirit. |
|
[179] Again, that madness
is nothing else but too much appearing passion may be gathered out of the effects of wine,
which are the same with those of the evil disposition of the organs. For the variety of
behaviour in men that have drunk too much is the same with that of madmen: some of them
raging, others loving, others laughing, all extravagantly, but according to their several
domineering passions: for the effect of the wine does but remove dissimulation, and take
from them the sight of the deformity of their passions. For, I believe, the most sober
men, when they walk alone without care and employment of the mind, would be unwilling the
vanity and extravagance of their thoughts at that time should be publicly seen, which is a
confession that passions unguided are for the most part mere madness. |
|
[180] The opinions of the
world, both in ancient and later ages, concerning the cause of madness have been two.
Some, deriving them from the passions; some, from demons or spirits, either good or bad,
which they thought might enter into a man, possess him, and move his organs in such
strange and uncouth manner as madmen use to do. The former sort, therefore, called such
men, madmen: but the latter called them sometimes demoniacs (that is, possessed with
spirits); sometimes energumeni (that is, agitated or moved with spirits); and now in Italy
they are called not only pazzi, madmen; but also spiritati, men possessed. |
|
[181] There was once a
great conflux of people in Abdera, a city of the Greeks, at the acting of the tragedy of
Andromeda, upon an extreme hot day: whereupon a great many of the spectators, falling into
fevers, had this accident from the heat and from the tragedy together, that they did
nothing but pronounce iambics, with the names of Perseus and Andromeda; which, together
with the fever, was cured by the coming on of winter: and this madness was thought to
proceed from the passion imprinted by the tragedy. Likewise there reigned a fit of madness
in another Grecian city which seized only the young maidens, and caused many of them to
hang themselves. This was by most then thought an act of the devil. But one that suspected
that contempt of life in them might proceed from some passion of the mind, and supposing
they did not contemn also their honour, gave counsel to the magistrates to strip such as
so hanged themselves, and let them hang out naked. This, the story says, cured that
madness. But on the other side, the same Grecians did often ascribe madness to the
operation of the Eumenides, or Furies; and sometimes of Ceres, Phoebus, and other gods: so
much did men attribute to phantasms as to think them aerial living bodies, and generally
to call them spirits. And as the Romans in this held the same opinion with the Greeks, so
also did the Jews; for they called madmen prophets, or, according as they thought the
spirits good or bad, demoniacs; and some of them called both prophets and demoniacs
madmen; and some called the same man both demoniac and madman. But for the Gentiles, it is
no wonder; because diseases and health, vices and virtues, and many natural accidents were
with them termed and worshipped as demons. So that a man was to understand by demon as
well sometimes an ague as a devil. But for the Jews to have such opinion is somewhat
strange. For neither Moses nor Abraham pretended to prophesy by possession of a spirit,
but from the voice of God, or by a vision or dream: nor is there anything in his law,
moral or ceremonial, by which they were taught there was any such enthusiasm, or any
possession. When God is said to take from the spirit that was in Moses, and give to the
seventy elders, the spirit of God, taking it for the substance of God, is not divided
(Numbers, 11.25). The Scriptures by the Spirit of God in man mean a man's spirit, inclined
to godliness. And where it is said, "Whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom to
make garments for Aaron," (Exodus, 28.3) is not meant a spirit put into them, that
can make garments, but the wisdom of their own spirits in that kind of work. In the like
sense, the spirit of man, when it produceth unclean actions, is ordinarily called an
unclean spirit; and so other spirits, though not always, yet as often as the virtue or
vice, so styled, is extraordinary and eminent. Neither did the other prophets of the Old
Testament pretend enthusiasm, or that God spoke in them, but to them, by voice, vision, or
dream; and the "burden of the Lord" was not possession, but command. How then
could the Jews fall into this opinion of possession? I can imagine no reason but that
which is common to all men; namely, the want of curiosity to search natural causes; and
their placing felicity in the acquisition of the gross pleasures of the senses, and the
things that most immediately conduce thereto. For they that see any strange and unusual
ability or defect in a man's mind, unless they see withal from what cause it may probably
proceed, can hardly think it natural; and if not natural, they must needs think it
supernatural; and then what can it be, but that either God or the Devil is in him? And
hence it came to pass, when our Saviour was compassed about with the multitude, those of
the house doubted he was mad, and went out to hold him: but the Scribes said he had
Beelzebub, and that was it, by which he cast out devils; as if the greater madman had awed
the lesser (Mark, 3.21). And that some said, "He hath a devil, and is mad";
whereas others, holding him for a prophet, said, "These are not the words of one that
hath a devil" (John, 10.20). So in the Old Testament he that came to anoint Jehu was
a Prophet; but some of the company asked Jehu, "What came that madman for?" (II
Kings, 9. 11). So that, in sum, it is manifest that whosoever behaved himself in
extraordinary manner was thought by the Jews to be possessed either with a good or evil
spirit; except by the Sadducees, who erred so far on the other hand as not to believe
there were at all any spirits, which is very near to direct atheism; and thereby perhaps
the more provoked others to term such men demoniacs rather than madmen. |
|
[182] But why then does our
Saviour proceed in the curing of them, as if they were possessed, and not as it they were
mad? To which I can give no other kind of answer but that which is given to those that
urge the Scripture in like manner against the opinion of the motion of the earth. The
Scripture was written to show unto men the kingdom of God, and to prepare their minds to
become His obedient subjects, leaving the world, and the philosophy thereof, to the
disputation of men for the exercising of their natural reason. Whether the earth's or
sun's motion make the day and night, or whether the exorbitant actions of men proceed from
passion or from the Devil, so we worship him not, it is all one, as to our obedience and
subjection to God Almighty; which is the thing for which the Scripture was written. As for
that our Saviour speaketh to the disease as to a person, it is the usual phrase of all
that cure by words only, as Christ did, and enchanters pretend to do, whether they speak
to a devil or not. For is not Christ also said to have rebuked the winds (Matthew, 8.26)?
Is not he said also to rebuke a fever (Luke, 4. 39)? Yet this does not argue that a fever
is a devil. And whereas many of those devils are said to confess Christ, it is not
necessary to interpret those places otherwise than that those madmen confessed Him. And
whereas our Saviour speaketh of an unclean spirit that, having gone out of a man,
wandereth through dry places, seeking rest, and finding none, and returning into the same
man with seven other spirits worse than himself; (Matthew, 12.43) it is manifestly a
parable, alluding to a man that, after a little endeavour to quit his lusts, is vanquished
by the strength of them, and becomes seven times worse than he was. So that I see nothing
at all in the Scripture that requireth a belief that demoniacs were any other thing but
madmen. |
|
[183] There is yet another
fault in the discourses of some men, which may also be numbered amongst the sorts of
madness; namely, that abuse of words, whereof I have spoken before in the fifth chapter by
the name of absurdity. And that is when men speak such words as, put together, have in
them no signification at all, but are fallen upon, by some, through misunderstanding of
the words they have received and repeat by rote; by others, from intention to deceive by
obscurity. And this is incident to none but those that converse in questions of matters
incomprehensible, as the Schoolmen; or in questions of abstruse philosophy. The common
sort of men seldom speak insignificantly, and are therefore, by those other egregious
persons, counted idiots. But to be assured their words are without anything correspondent
to them in the mind, there would need some examples; which if any man require, let him
take a Schoolman into his hands and see if he can translate any one chapter concerning any
difficult point; as the Trinity, the Deity, the nature of Christ, transubstantiation, free
will, etc., into any of the modern tongues, so as to make the same intelligible; or into
any tolerable Latin, such as they were acquainted withal that lived when the Latin tongue
was vulgar. What is the meaning of these words: "The first cause does not necessarily
inflow anything into the second, by force of the essential subordination of the second
causes, by which it may help it to work?" They are the translation of the title of
the sixth chapter of Suarez's first book, Of the Concourse, Motion, and Help of God. When
men write whole volumes of such stuff, are they not mad, or intend to make others so? And
particularly, in the question of transubstantiation; where after certain words spoken they
that say, the whiteness, roundness, magnitude, quality, corruptibility, all which are
incorporeal, etc., go out of the wafer into the body of our blessed Saviour, do they not
make those nesses, tudes, and ties to be so many spirits possessing his body? For by
spirits they mean always things that, being incorporeal, are nevertheless movable from one
place to another. So that this kind of absurdity may rightly be numbered amongst the many
sorts of madness; and all the time that, guided by clear thoughts of their worldly lust,
they forbear disputing or writing thus, but lucid intervals. And thus much of the virtues
and defects intellectual. |
|
[184] CHAPTER IX OF THE
SEVERAL SUBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE |
|
[185] THERE are of are of
knowledge two kinds, whereof one is knowledge of fact; the other, knowledge of the
consequence of one affirmation to another. The former is nothing else but sense and
memory, and is absolute knowledge; as when we see a fact doing, or remember it done; and
this is the knowledge required in a witness. The latter is called science, and is
conditional; as when we know that: if the figure shown be a circle, then any straight line
through the center shall divide it into two equal parts. And this is the knowledge
required in a philosopher; that is to say, of him that pretends to reasoning. |
|
[186] The register of
knowledge of fact is called history, whereof there be two sorts: one called natural
history; which is the history of such facts, or effects of Nature, as have no dependence
on man's will; such as are the histories of metals, plants, animals, regions, and the
like. The other is civil history, which is the history of the voluntary actions of men in
Commonwealths. |
|
[187] The registers of
science are such books as contain the demonstrations of consequences of one affirmation to
another; and are commonly called books of philosophy; whereof the sorts are many,
according to the diversity of the matter; and may be divided in such manner as I have
divided them in the following table. |
|
[188] I. SCIENCE, that is,
knowledge of consequences; which is called also PHILOSOPHY A. Consequences from accidents
of bodies natural; which is called NATURAL PHILOSOPHY 1. Consequences from accidents
common to all bodies natural; which are quantity, and motion. a. Consequences from
quantity, and motion indeterminate; which, being the principles or first foundation of
philosophy, is called philosophia prima PHILOSOPHIA PRIMA b. Consequences from motion, and
quantity determined 1) Consequences from quantity, and motion determined a) By figure, By
number 1] Mathematics, GEOMETRY ARITHMETIC 2) Consequences from motion, and quantity of
bodies in special a) Consequences from motion, and quantity of the great parts of the
world, as the earth and stars, 1] Cosmography ASTRONOMY GEOGRAPHY b) Consequences from
motion of special kinds, and figures of body, 1] Mechanics, doctrine of weight Science of
ENGINEERS ARCHITECTURE NAVIGATION 2. PHYSICS, or consequences from qualities a.
Consequences from qualities of bodies transient, such as sometimes appear, sometimes
vanish METEOROLOGY b. Consequences from qualities of bodies permanent 1) Consequences from
qualities of stars a) Consequences from the light of the stars. Out of this, and the
motion of the sun, is made the science of SCIOGRAPHY b) Consequences from the influence of
the stars, ASTROLOGY 2) Consequences of qualities from liquid bodies that fill the space
between the stars; such as are the air, or substance etherial 3) Consequences from
qualities of bodies terrestrial a) Consequences from parts of the earth that are without
sense, 1] Consequences from qualities of minerals, as stones, metals, etc. 2] Consequences
from the qualities of vegetables b) Consequences from qualities of animals 1] Consequences
from qualities of animals in general a] Consequences from vision, OPTICS b] Consequences
from sounds, MUSIC c] Consequences from the rest of the senses 2] Consequences from
qualities of men in special a] Consequences from passions of men, ETHICS b] Consequences
from speech, i) In magnifying, vilifying, etc. POETRY ii) In persuading, RHETORIC iii) In
reasoning, LOGIC iv) In contracting, The Science of JUST and UNJUST B. Consequences from
accidents of politic bodies; which is called POLITICS, AND CIVIL PHILOSOPHY 1. Of
consequences from the institution of COMMONWEALTHS, to the rights, and duties of the body
politic, or sovereign 2. Of consequences from the same, to the duty and right of the
subjects |
|
[189] CHAPTER X OF POWER,
WORTH, DIGNITY, HONOUR AND WORTHINESS |
|
[190] THE POWER of a man,
to take it universally, is his present means to obtain some future apparent good, and is
either original or instrumental. |
|
[191] Natural power is the
eminence of the faculties of body, or mind; as extraordinary strength, form, prudence,
arts, eloquence, liberality, nobility. Instrumental are those powers which, acquired by
these, or by fortune, are means and instruments to acquire more; as riches, reputation,
friends, and the secret working of God, which men call good luck. For the nature of power
is, in this point, like to fame, increasing as it proceeds; or like the motion of heavy
bodies, which, the further they go, make still the more haste. |
|
[192] The greatest of human
powers is that which is compounded of the powers of most men, united by consent, in one
person, natural or civil, that has the use of all their powers depending on his will; such
as is the power of a Commonwealth: or depending on the wills of each particular; such as
is the power of a faction, or of diverse. factions leagued. Therefore to have servants is
power; to have friends is power: for they are strengths united. |
|
[193] Also, riches joined
with liberality is power; because it procureth friends and servants: without liberality,
not so; because in this case they defend not, but expose men to envy, as a prey. |
|
[194] Reputation of power
is power; because it draweth with it the adherence of those that need protection. |
|
[195] So is reputation of
love of a man's country, called popularity, for the same reason. |
|
[196] Also, what quality
soever maketh a man beloved or feared of many, or the reputation of such quality, is
power; because it is a means to have the assistance and service of many. |
|
[197] Good success is
power; because it maketh reputation of wisdom or good fortune, which makes men either fear
him or rely on him. |
|
[198] Affability of men
already in power is increase of power; because it gaineth love. |
|
[199] Reputation of
prudence in the conduct of peace or war is power; because to prudent men we commit the
government of ourselves more willingly than to others. |
|
[200] Nobility is power,
not in all places, but only in those Commonwealths where it has privileges; for in such
privileges consisteth their power. |
|
[201] Eloquence is power;
because it is seeming prudence. |
|
[202] Form is power;
because being a promise of good, it recommendeth men to the favour of women and strangers. |
|
[203] The sciences are
small powers; because not eminent, and therefore, not acknowledged in any man; nor are at
all, but in a few, and in them, but of a few things. For science is of that nature, as
none can understand it to be, but such as in a good measure have attained it. |
|
[204] Arts of public use,
as fortification, making of engines, and other instruments of war, because they confer to
defence and victory, are power; and though the true mother of them be science, namely, the
mathematics yet, because they are brought into the light by the hand of the artificer,
they be esteemed (the midwife passing with the vulgar for the mother) as his issue. |
|
[205] The value or worth of
a man is, as of all other things, his price; that is to say, so much as would be given for
the use of his power, and therefore is not absolute, but a thing dependent on the need and
judgement of another. An able conductor of soldiers is of great price in time of war
present or imminent, but in peace not so. A learned and uncorrupt judge is much worth in
time of peace, but not so much in war. And as in other things, so in men, not the seller,
but the buyer determines the price. For let a man, as most men do, rate themselves at the
highest value they can, yet their true value is no more than it is esteemed by others. |
|
[206] The manifestation of
the value we set on one another is that which is commonly called honouring and
dishonouring. To value a man at a high rate is to honour him; at a low rate is to
dishonour him. But high and low, in this case, is to be understood by comparison to the
rate that each man setteth on himself. |
|
[207] The public worth of a
man, which is the value set on him by the Commonwealth, is that which men commonly call
dignity. And this value of him by the Commonwealth is understood by offices of command,
judicature, public employment; or by names and titles introduced for distinction of such
value. |
|
[208] To pray to another
for aid of any kind is to honour; because a sign we have an opinion he has power to help;
and the more difficult the aid is, the more is the honour. |
|
[209] To obey s to honour;
because no man obeys them who they think have no power to help or hurt them. And
consequently to disobey is to dishonour. |
|
[210] To give great gifts
to a man is to honour him; because it is buying of protection, and acknowledging of power.
To give little gifts is to dishonour; because it is but alms, and signifies an opinion of
the need of small helps. |
|
[211] To be sedulous in
promoting another's good, also to flatter, is to honour; as a sign we seek his protection
or aid. To neglect is to dishonour. |
|
[212] To give way or place
to another, in any commodity, is to honour; being a confession of greater power. To
arrogate is to dishonour. |
|
[213] To show any sign of
love or fear of another is honour; for both to love and to fear is to value. To contemn,
or less to love or fear than he expects, is to dishonour; for it is undervaluing. |
|
[214] To praise, magnify,
or call happy is to honour; because nothing but goodness, power, and felicity is valued.
To revile, mock, or pity is to dishonour. |
|
[215] To speak to another
with consideration, to appear before him with decency and humility, is to honour him; as
signs of fear to offend. To speak to him rashly, to do anything before him obscenely,
slovenly, impudently is to dishonour. |
|
[216] To believe, to trust,
to rely on another, is to honour him; sign of opinion of his virtue and power. To
distrust, or not believe, is to dishonour. |
|
[217] To hearken to a man's
counsel, or discourse of what kind soever, is to honour; as a sign we think him wise, or
eloquent, or witty. To sleep, or go forth, or talk the while, is to dishonour. |
|
[218] To do those things to
another which he takes for signs of honour, or which the law or custom makes so, is to
honour; because in approving the honour done by others, he acknowledgeth the power which
others acknowledge. To refuse to do them is to dishonour. |
|
[219] To agree with in
opinion is to honour; as being a sign of approving his judgement and wisdom. To dissent is
dishonour, and an upbraiding of error, and, if the dissent be in many things, of folly. |
|
[220] To imitate is to
honour; for it is vehemently to approve. To imitate one's enemy is to dishonour. |
|
[221] To honour those
another honours is to honour him; as a sign of approbation of his judgement. To honour his
enemies is to dishonour him. |
|
[222] To employ in counsel,
or in actions of difficulty, is to honour; as a sign of opinion of his wisdom or other
power. To deny employment in the same cases to those that seek it is to dishonour. |
|
[223] All these ways of
honouring are natural, and as well within, as without Commonwealths. But in Commonwealths
where he or they that have the supreme authority can make whatsoever they please to stand
for signs of honour, there be other honours. |
|
[224] A sovereign doth
honour a subject with whatsoever title, or office, or employment, or action that he
himself will have taken for a sign of his will to honour him. |
|
[225] The king of Persia
honoured Mordecai when he appointed he should be conducted through the streets in the
king's garment, upon one of the king's horses, with a crown on his head, and a prince
before him, proclaiming, "Thus shall it be done to him that the king will
honour." And yet another king of Persia, or the same another time, to one that
demanded for some great service to wear one of the king's robes, gave him leave so to do;
but with this addition, that he should wear it as the king's fool; and then it was
dishonour. So that of civil honour, the fountain is in the person of the Commonwealth, and
dependeth on the will of the sovereign, and is therefore temporary and called civil
honour; such as are magistracy, offices, titles, and in some places coats and scutcheons
painted: and men honour such as have them, as having so many signs of favour in the
Commonwealth, which favour is power. |
|
[226] Honourable is
whatsoever possession, action, or quality is an argument and sign of power. |
|
[227] And therefore to be
honoured, loved, or feared of many is honourable, as arguments of power. To be honoured of
few or none, dishonourable. |
|
[228] Dominion and victory
is honourable because acquired by power; and servitude, for need or fear, is
dishonourable. |
|
[229] Good fortune, if
lasting, honourable; as a sign of the favour of God. Ill and losses, dishonourable. Riches
are honourable, for they are power. Poverty, dishonourable. Magnanimity, liberality, hope,
courage, confidence, are honourable; for they proceed from the conscience of power.
Pusillanimity, parsimony, fear, diffidence, are dishonourable. |
|
[230] Timely resolution, or
determination of what a man is to do, is honourable, as being the contempt of small
difficulties and dangers. And irresolution, dishonourable, as a sign of too much valuing
of little impediments and little advantages: for when a man has weighed things as long as
the time permits, and resolves not, the difference of weight is but little; and therefore
if he resolve not, he overvalues little things, which is pusillanimity. |
|
[231] All actions and
speeches that proceed, or seem to proceed, from much experience, science, discretion, or
wit are honourable; for all these are powers. Actions or words that proceed from error,
ignorance, or folly, dishonourable. |
|
[232] Gravity, as far forth
as it seems to proceed from a mind employed on something else, is honourable; because
employment is a sign of power. But if it seem to proceed from a purpose to appear grave,
it is dishonourable. For the gravity of the former is like the steadiness of a ship laden
with merchandise; but of the like the steadiness of a ship ballasted with sand and other
trash. |
|
[233] To be conspicuous,
that is to say, to be known, for wealth, office, great actions, or any eminent good is
honourable; as a sign of the power for which he is conspicuous. On the contrary, obscurity
is dishonourable. |
|
[234] To be descended from
conspicuous parents is honourable; because they the more easily attain the aids and
friends of their ancestors. On the contrary, to be descended from obscure parentage is
dishonourable. |
|
[235] Actions proceeding
from equity, joined with loss, are honourable; as signs of magnanimity: for magnanimity is
a sign of power. On the contrary, craft, shifting, neglect of equity, is dishonourable. |
|
[236] Covetousness of great
riches, and ambition of great honours, are honourable; as signs of power to obtain them.
Covetousness, and ambition of little gains, or preferments, is dishonourable. |
|
[237] Nor does it alter the
case of honour whether an action (so it be great and difficult, and consequently a sign of
much power) be just or unjust: for honour consisteth only in the opinion of power.
Therefore, the ancient heathen did not think they dishonoured, but greatly honoured the
gods, when they introduced them in their poems committing rapes, thefts, and other great,
but unjust or unclean acts; in so much as nothing is so much celebrated in Jupiter as his
adulteries; nor in Mercury as his frauds and thefts; of whose praises, in a hymn of Homer,
the greatest is this, that being born in the morning, he had invented music at noon, and
before night stolen away the cattle of Apollo from his herdsmen. |
|
[238] Also amongst men,
till there were constituted great Commonwealths, it was thought no dishonour to be a
pirate, or a highway thief; but rather a lawful trade, not only amongst the Greeks, but
also amongst all other nations; as is manifest by the of ancient time. And at this day, in
this part of the world, private duels are, and always will be, honourable, though
unlawful, till such time as there shall be honour ordained for them that refuse, and
ignominy for them that make the challenge. For duels also are many times effects of
courage, and the ground of courage is always strength or skill, which are power; though
for the most part they be effects of rash speaking, and of the fear of dishonour, in one
or both the combatants; who, engaged by rashness, are driven into the lists to avoid
disgrace. |
|
[239] Scutcheons and coats
of arms hereditary, where they have any their any eminent privileges, are honourable;
otherwise not for their power consisteth either in such privileges, or in riches, or some
such thing as is equally honoured in other men. This kind of honour, commonly called
gentry, has been derived from the ancient Germans. For there never was any such thing
known where the German customs were unknown. Nor is it now anywhere in use where the
Germans have not inhabited. The ancient Greek commanders, when they went to war, had their
shields painted with such devices as they pleased; insomuch as an unpainted buckler was a
sign of poverty, and of a common soldier; but they transmitted not the inheritance of
them. The Romans transmitted the marks of their families; but they were the images, not
the devices of their ancestors. Amongst the people of Asia, Africa, and America, there is
not, nor was ever, any such thing. Germans only had that custom; from whom it has been
derived into England, France, Spain and Italy, when in great numbers they either aided the
Romans or made their own conquests in these western parts of the world. |
|
[240] For Germany, being
anciently, as all other countries in their beginnings, divided amongst an infinite number
of little lords, or masters of families, that continually had wars one with another, those
masters, or lords, principally to the end they might, when they were covered with arms, be
known by their followers, and partly for ornament, both painted their armor, or their
scutcheon, or coat, with the picture of some beast, or other thing, and also put some
eminent and visible mark upon the crest of their helmets. And this ornament both of the
arms and crest descended by inheritance to their children; to the eldest pure, and to the
rest with some note of diversity, such as the old master, that is to say in Dutch, the
Here-alt, thought fit. But when many such families, joined together, made a greater
monarchy, this duty of the herald to distinguish scutcheons was made a private office
apart. And the issue of these lords is the great and ancient gentry; which for the most
part bear living creatures noted for courage and rapine; or castles, battlements, belts,
weapons, bars, palisades, and other notes of war; nothing being then in honour, but virtue
military. Afterwards, not only kings, but popular Commonwealths, gave diverse manners of
scutcheons to such as went forth to the war, or returned from it, for encouragement or
recompense to their service. All which, by an observing reader, may be found in such
ancient histories, Greek and Latin, as make mention of the German nation and manners in
their times. |
|
[241] Titles of honour,
such as are duke, count, marquis, and baron, are honourable; as signifying the value set
upon them by the sovereign power of the Commonwealth: which titles were in old time titles
of office and command derived some from the Romans, some from the Germans and French.
Dukes, in Latin, duces, being generals in war; counts, comites, such as bore the general
company out of friendship, and were left to govern and defend places conquered and
pacified; marquises, marchioness, were counts that governed the marches, or bounds of the
Empire. Which titles of duke, count, and marquis came into the Empire about the time of
Constantine the Great, from the customs of the German militia. But baron seems to have
been a title of the Gauls, and signifies a great man; such as were the kings' or princes'
men whom they employed in war about their persons; and seems to be derived from vir, to
ber, and bar, that signified the same in the language of the Gauls, that vir in Latin; and
thence to bero and baro: so that such men were called berones, and after barones; and (in
Spanish) varones. But he that would know more, particularly the original of titles of
honour, may find it, as I have done this, in Mr. Selden's most excellent treatise of that
subject. In process of time these offices of honour, by occasion of trouble, and for
reasons of good and peaceable government, were turned into mere titles, serving, for the
most part, to distinguish the precedence, place, and order of subjects in the
Commonwealth: and men were made dukes, counts, marquises, and barons of places, wherein
they had neither possession nor command, and other titles also were devised to the same
end. |
|
[242] Worthiness is a thing
different from the worth or value of a man, and also from his merit or desert, and
consisteth in a particular power or ability for that whereof he is said to be worthy;
which particular ability is usually named fitness, or aptitude. |
|
[243] For he is worthiest
to be a commander, to be a judge, or to have any other charge, that is best fitted with
the qualities required to the well discharging of it; and worthiest of riches, that has
the qualities most requisite for the well using of them: any of which qualities being
absent, one may nevertheless be a worthy man, and valuable for something else. Again, a
man may be worthy of riches, office, and employment that nevertheless can plead no right
to have it before another, and therefore cannot be said to merit or deserve it. For merit
presupposeth a right, and that the thing deserved is due by promise, of which I shall say
more hereafter when I shall speak of contracts. |
|
[244] CHAPTER XI OF THE
DIFFERENCE OF MANNERS |
|
[245] BY MANNERS, I mean
not here decency of behaviour; as how one man should salute another, or how a man should
wash his mouth, or pick his teeth before company, and such other points of the small
morals; but those qualities of mankind that concern their living together in peace and
unity. To which end we are to consider that the felicity of this life consisteth not in
the repose of a mind satisfied. For there is no such finis ultimus (utmost aim) nor summum
bonum (greatest good) as is spoken of in the books of the old moral philosophers. Nor can
a man any more live whose desires are at an end than he whose senses and imaginations are
at a stand. Felicity is a continual progress of the desire from one object to another, the
attaining of the former being still but the way to the latter. The cause whereof is that
the object of man's desire is not to enjoy once only, and for one instant of time, but to
assure forever the way of his future desire. And therefore the voluntary actions and
inclinations of all men tend not only to the procuring, but also to the assuring of a
contented life, and differ only in the way, which ariseth partly from the diversity of
passions in diverse men, and partly from the difference of the knowledge or opinion each
one has of the causes which produce the effect desired. |
|
[246] So that in the first
place, I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of
power after power, that ceaseth only in death. And the cause of this is not always that a
man hopes for a more intensive delight than he has already attained to, or that he cannot
be content with a moderate power, but because he cannot assure the power and means to live
well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more. And from hence it is that
kings, whose power is greatest, turn their endeavours to the assuring it at home by laws,
or abroad by wars: and when that is done, there succeedeth a new desire; in some, of fame
from new conquest; in others, of ease and sensual pleasure; in others, of admiration, or
being flattered for excellence in some art or other ability of the mind. |
|
[247] Competition of
riches, honour, command, or other power inclineth to contention, enmity, and war, because
the way of one competitor to the attaining of his desire is to kill, subdue, supplant, or
repel the other. Particularly, competition of praise inclineth to a reverence of
antiquity. For men contend with the living, not with the dead; to these ascribing more
than due, that they may obscure the glory of the other. |
|
[248] Desire of ease, and
sensual delight, disposeth men to obey a common power: because by such desires a man doth
abandon the protection that might be hoped for from his own industry and labour. Fear of
death and wounds disposeth to the same, and for the same reason. On the contrary, needy
men and hardy, not contented with their present condition, as also all men that are
ambitious of military command, are inclined to continue the causes of war and to stir up
trouble and sedition: for there is no honour military but by war; nor any such hope to
mend an ill game as by causing a new shuffle. |
|
[249] Desire of knowledge,
and arts of peace, inclineth men to obey a common power: for such desire containeth a
desire of leisure, and consequently protection from some other power than their own. |
|
[250] Desire of praise
disposeth to laudable actions, such as please them whose judgement they value; for of
those men whom we contemn, we contemn also the praises. Desire of fame after death does
the same. And though after death there be no sense of the praise given us on earth, as
being joys that are either swallowed up in the unspeakable joys of heaven or extinguished
in the extreme torments of hell: yet is not such fame vain; because men have a present
delight therein, from the foresight of it, and of the benefit that may redound thereby to
their posterity: which though they now see not, yet they imagine; and anything that is
pleasure in the sense, the same also is pleasure in the imagination. |
|
[251] To have received from
one, to whom we think ourselves equal, greater benefits than there is hope to requite,
disposeth to counterfeit love, but really secret hatred, and puts a man into the estate of
a desperate debtor that, in declining the sight of his creditor, tacitly wishes him there
where he might never see him more. For benefits oblige; and obligation is thraldom; and
unrequitable obligation, perpetual thraldom; which is to one's equal, hateful. But to have
received benefits from one whom we acknowledge for superior inclines to love; because the
obligation is no new depression: and cheerful acceptation (which men call gratitude) is
such an honour done to the obliger as is taken generally for retribution. Also to receive
benefits, though from an equal, or inferior, as long as there is hope of requital,
disposeth to love: for in the intention of the receiver, the obligation is of aid and
service mutual; from whence proceedeth an emulation of who shall exceed in benefiting; the
most noble and profitable contention possible, wherein the victor is pleased with his
victory, and the other revenged by confessing it. |
|
[252] To have done more
hurt to a man than he can or is willing to expiate inclineth the doer to hate the
sufferer. For he must expect revenge or forgiveness; both which are hateful. |
|
[253] Fear of oppression
disposeth a man to anticipate or to seek aid by society: for there is no other way by
which a man can secure his life and liberty. |
|
[254] Men that distrust
their own subtlety are in tumult and sedition better disposed for victory than they that
suppose themselves wise or crafty. For these love to consult; the other, fearing to be
circumvented to strike first. And in sedition, men being always in the precincts of
battle, to hold together and use all advantages of force is a better stratagem than any
that can proceed from subtlety of wit. |
|
[255] Vainglorious men,
such as without being conscious to themselves of great sufficiency, delight in supposing
themselves gallant men, are inclined only to ostentation, but not to attempt; because when
danger or difficulty appears, they look for nothing but to have their insufficiency
discovered. |
|
[256] Vain, glorious men,
such as estimate their sufficiency by the flattery of other men, or the fortune of some
precedent action, without assured ground of hope from the true knowledge of themselves,
are inclined to rash engaging; and in the approach of danger, or difficulty, to retire if
they can: because not seeing the way of safety they will rather hazard their honour, which
may be salved with an excuse, than their lives, for which no salve is sufficient. |
|
[257] Men that have a
strong opinion of their own wisdom in matter of government are disposed to ambition.
Because without public employment in counsel or magistracy, the honour of their wisdom is
lost. And therefore eloquent speakers are inclined to ambition; for eloquence seemeth
wisdom, both to themselves and others. |
|
[258] Pusillanimity
disposeth men to irresolution, and consequently to lose the occasions and fittest
opportunities of action. For after men have been in deliberation till the time of action
approach, if it be not then manifest what is best to be done, it is a sign the difference
of motives the one way and the other are not great: therefore not to resolve then is to
lose the occasion by weighing of trifles, which is pusillanimity. |
|
[259] Frugality, though in
poor men a virtue, maketh a man unapt to achieve such actions as require the strength of
many men at once: for it weakeneth their endeavour, which to be nourished and kept in
vigour by reward. |
|
[260] Eloquence, with
flattery, disposeth men to confide in them that have it; because the former is seeming
wisdom, the latter seeming kindness. Add to them military reputation and it disposeth men
to adhere and subject themselves to those men that have them. The two former, having given
them caution against danger from him, the latter gives them caution against danger from
others. |
|
[261] Want of science, that
is, ignorance of causes, disposeth or rather constraineth a man to rely on the advice and
authority of others. For all men whom the truth concerns, if they rely not on their own,
must rely on the opinion of some other whom they think wiser than themselves, and see not
why he should deceive them. |
|
[262] Ignorance of the
signification of words, is want of understanding, disposeth men to take on trust, not only
the truth they know not, but also the errors; and which is more, the nonsense of them they
trust: for neither error nor nonsense can, without a perfect understanding of words, be
detected. |
|
[263] From the same it
proceedeth that men give different names to one and the same thing from the difference of
their own passions: as they that approve a private opinion call it opinion; but they that
mislike it, heresy: and yet heresy signifies no more than private opinion; but has only a
greater tincture of choler. |
|
[264] From the same also it
proceedeth that men cannot distinguish, without study and great understanding between one
action of many men and many actions of one multitude; as for example, between the one
action of all the senators of Rome in killing Catiline, and the many actions of a number
of senators in killing Caesar; and therefore are disposed to take for the action of the
people that which is a multitude of actions done by a multitude of men, led perhaps by the
persuasion of one. |
|
[265] Ignorance of the
causes, and original constitution of right, equity, law, and justice, disposeth a man to
make custom and example the rule of his actions; in such manner as to think that unjust
which it hath been the custom to punish; and that just, of the impunity and approbation
whereof they can produce an example or (as the lawyers which only use this false measure
of justice barbarously call it) a precedent; like little children that have no other rule
of good and evil manners but the correction they receive from their parents and masters;
save that children are constant to their rule, whereas men are not so; because grown
strong and stubborn, they appeal from custom to reason, and from reason to custom, as it
serves their turn, receding from custom when their interest requires it, and setting
themselves against reason as oft as reason is against them: which is the cause that the
doctrine of right and wrong is perpetually disputed, both by the pen and the sword:
whereas the doctrine of lines and figures is not so; because men care not, in that
subject, what be truth, as a thing that crosses no man's ambition, profit, or lust. For I
doubt not, but if it had been a thing contrary to any man's right of dominion, or to the
interest of men that have dominion, that the three angles of a triangle should be equal to
two angles of a square, that doctrine should have been, if not disputed, yet by the
burning of all books of geometry suppressed, as far as he whom it concerned was able. |
|
[266] Ignorance of remote
causes disposeth men to attribute all events to the causes immediate and instrumental: for
these are all the causes they perceive. And hence it comes to pass that in all places men
that are grieved with payments to the public discharge their anger upon the publicans,
that is to say, farmers, collectors, and other officers of the public revenue, and adhere
to such as find fault with the public government; and thereby, when they have engaged
themselves beyond hope of justification, fall also upon the supreme authority, for fear of
punishment, or shame of receiving pardon. |
|
[267] Ignorance of natural
causes disposeth a man to credulity, so as to believe many times impassibilities: for such
know nothing to the contrary, but that they may be true, being unable to detect the
impossibility. And credulity, because men love to be hearkened unto in company, disposeth
them to lying: so that ignorance itself, without malice, is able to make a man both to
believe lies and tell them, and sometimes also to invent them. |
|
[268] Anxiety for the
future time disposeth men to inquire into the causes of things: because the knowledge of
them maketh men the better able to order the present to their best advantage. |
|
[269] Curiosity, or love of
the knowledge of causes, draws a man from consideration of the effect to seek the cause;
and again, the cause of that cause; till of necessity he must come to this thought at
last, that there is some cause whereof there is no former cause, but is eternal; which is
it men call God. So that it is impossible to make any profound inquiry into natural causes
without being inclined thereby to believe there is one God eternal; though they cannot
have any idea of Him in their mind answerable to His nature. For as a man that is born
blind, hearing men talk of warming themselves by the fire, and being brought to warm
himself by the same, may easily conceive, and assure himself, there is somewhat there
which men call fire and is the cause of the heat he feels, but cannot imagine what it is
like, nor have an idea of it in his mind such as they have that see it: so also, by the
visible things of this world, and their admirable order, a man may conceive there is a
cause of them, which men call God, and yet not have an idea or image of Him in his mind. |
|
[270] And they that make
little or no inquiry into the natural causes of things, yet from the fear that proceeds
from the ignorance itself of what it is that hath the power to do them much good or harm
are inclined to suppose, and feign unto themselves, several kinds of powers invisible, and
to stand in awe of their own imaginations, and in time of distress to invoke them; as also
in the time of an expected good success, to give them thanks, making the creatures of
their own fancy their gods. By which means it hath come to pass that from the innumerable
variety of fancy, men have created in the world innumerable sorts of gods. And this fear
of things invisible is the natural seed of that which every one in himself calleth
religion; and in them that worship or fear that power otherwise than they do,
superstition. |
|
[271] And this seed of
religion, having been observed by many, some of those that have observed it have been
inclined thereby to nourish, dress, and form it into laws; and to add to it, of their own
invention, any opinion of the causes of future events by which they thought they should
best be able to govern others and make unto themselves the greatest use of their powers. |
|
[272] CHAPTER XII OF
RELIGION |
|
[273] SEEING there are no
signs nor fruit of religion but in man only, there is no cause to doubt but that the seed
of religion is also only in man; and consisteth in some peculiar quality, or at least in
some eminent degree thereof, not to be found in other living creatures. |
|
[274] And first, it is
peculiar to the nature of man to be inquisitive into the causes of the events they see,
some more, some less, but all men so much as to be curious in the search of the causes of
their own good and evil fortune. |
|
[275] Secondly, upon the
sight of anything that hath a beginning, to think also it had a cause which determined the
same to begin then when it did, rather than sooner or later. |
|
[276] Thirdly, whereas
there is no other felicity of beasts but the enjoying of their quotidian food, ease, and
lusts; as having little or no foresight of the time to come for want of observation and
memory of the order, consequence, and dependence of the things they see; man observeth how
one event hath been produced by another, and remembereth in them antecedence and
consequence; and when he cannot assure himself of the true causes of things (for the
causes of good and evil fortune for the most part are invisible), he supposes causes of
them, either such as his own fancy suggesteth, or trusteth to the authority of other men
such as he thinks to be his friends and wiser than himself. |
|
[277] The two first make
anxiety. For being assured that there be causes of all things that have arrived hitherto,
or shall arrive hereafter, it is impossible for a man, who continually endeavoureth to
secure himself against the evil he fears, and procure the good he desireth, not to be in a
perpetual solicitude of the time to come; so that every man, especially those that are
over-provident, are in an estate like to that of Prometheus. For as Prometheus (which,
interpreted, is the prudent man) was bound to the hill Caucasus, a place of large
prospect, where an eagle, feeding on his liver, devoured in the day as much as was
repaired in the night: so that man, which looks too far before him in the care of future
time, hath his heart all the day long gnawed on by fear of death, poverty, or other
calamity; and has no repose, nor pause of his anxiety, but in sleep. |
|
[278] This perpetual fear,
always accompanying mankind in the ignorance of causes, as it were in the dark, must needs
have for object something. And therefore when there is nothing to be seen, there is
nothing to accuse either of their good or evil fortune but some power or agent invisible:
in which sense perhaps it was that some of the old poets said that the gods were at first
created by human fear: which, spoken of the gods (that is to say, of the many gods of the
Gentiles), is very true. But the acknowledging of one God eternal, infinite, and
omnipotent may more easily be derived from the desire men have to know the causes of
natural bodies, and their several virtues and operations, than from the fear of what was
to befall them in time to come. For he that, from any effect he seeth come to pass, should
reason to the next and immediate cause thereof, and from thence to the cause of that
cause, and plunge himself profoundly in the pursuit of causes, shall at last come to this,
that there must be (as even the heathen philosophers confessed) one First Mover; that is,
a first and an eternal cause of all things; which is that which men mean by the name of
God: and all this without thought of their fortune, the solicitude whereof both inclines
to fear and hinders them from the search of the causes of other things; and thereby gives
occasion of feigning of as many gods as there be men that feign them. |
|
[279] And for the matter,
or substance, of the invisible agents, so fancied, they could not by natural cogitation
fall upon any other concept but that it was the same with that of the soul of man; and
that the soul of man was of the same substance with that which appeareth in a dream to one
that sleepeth; or in a looking-glass to one that is awake; which, men not knowing that
such apparitions are nothing else but creatures of the fancy, think to be real and
external substances, and therefore call them ghosts; as the Latins called them imagines
and umbrae and thought them spirits (that is, thin aerial bodies), and those invisible
agents, which they feared, to be like them, save that they appear and vanish when they
please. But the opinion that such spirits were incorporeal, or immaterial, could never
enter into the mind of any man by nature; because, though men may put together words of
contradictory signification, as spirit and incorporeal, yet they can never have the
imagination of anything answering to them: and therefore, men that by their own meditation
arrive to the acknowledgement of one infinite, omnipotent, and eternal God choose rather
to confess He is incomprehensible and above their understanding than to define His nature
by spirit incorporeal, and then confess their definition to be unintelligible: or if they
give him such a title, it is not dogmatically, with intention to make the Divine Nature
understood, but piously, to honour Him with attributes of significations as remote as they
can from the grossness of bodies visible. |
|
[280] Then, for the way by
which they think these invisible agents wrought their effects; that is to say, what
immediate causes they used in bringing things to pass, men that know not what it is that
we call causing (that is, almost all men) have no other rule to guess by but by observing
and remembering what they have seen to precede the like effect at some other time, or
times before, without seeing between the antecedent and subsequent event any dependence or
connexion at all: and therefore from the like things past, they expect the like things to
come; and hope for good or evil luck, superstitiously, from things that have no part at
all in the causing of it: as the Athenians did for their war at Lepanto demand another
Phormio; the Pompeian faction for their war in Africa, another Scipio; and others have
done in diverse other occasions since. In like manner they attribute their fortune to a
stander by, to a lucky or unlucky place, to words spoken, especially if the name of God be
amongst them, as charming, and conjuring (the liturgy of witches); insomuch as to believe
they have power to turn a stone into bread, bread into a man, or anything into anything. |
|
[281] Thirdly, for the
worship which naturally men exhibit to powers invisible, it can be no other but such
expressions of their reverence as they would use towards men; gifts, petitions, thanks,
submission of body, considerate addresses, sober behaviour, premeditated words, swearing
(that is, assuring one another of their promises), by invoking them. Beyond that, reason
suggesteth nothing, but leaves them either to rest there, or for further ceremonies to
rely on those they believe to be wiser than themselves. |
|
[282] Lastly, concerning
how these invisible powers declare to men the things which shall hereafter come to pass,
especially concerning their good or evil fortune in general, or good or ill success in any
particular undertaking, men are naturally at a stand; save that using to conjecture of the
time to come by the time past, they are very apt, not only to take casual things, after
one or two encounters, for prognostics of the like encounter ever after, but also to
believe the like prognostics from other men of whom they have once conceived a good
opinion. |
|
[283] And in these four
things, opinion of ghosts, ignorance of second causes, devotion towards what men fear, and
taking of things casual for prognostics, consisteth the natural seed of religion; which,
by reason of the different fancies, judgements, and passions of several men, hath grown up
into ceremonies so different that those which are used by one man are for the most part
ridiculous to another. |
|
[284] For these seeds have
received culture from two sorts of men. One sort have been they that have nourished and
ordered them, according to their own invention. The other have done it by God's
commandment and direction. But both sorts have done it with a purpose to make those men
that relied on them the more apt to obedience, laws, peace, charity, and civil society. So
that the religion of the former sort is a part of human politics; and teacheth part of the
duty which earthly kings require of their subjects. And the religion of the latter sort is
divine politics; and containeth precepts to those that have yielded themselves subjects in
the kingdom of God. Of the former sort were all the founders of Commonwealths, and the
lawgivers of the Gentiles: of the latter sort were Abraham, Moses, and our blessed
Saviour, by whom have been derived unto us the laws of the kingdom of God. |
|
[285] And for that part of
religion which consisteth in opinions concerning the nature of powers invisible, there is
almost nothing that has a name that has not been esteemed amongst the Gentiles, in one
place or another, a god or devil; or by their poets feigned to be animated, inhabited, or
possessed by some spirit or other. |
|
[286] The unformed matter
of the world was a god by the name of Chaos. |
|
[287] The heaven, the
ocean, the planets, the fire, the earth, the winds, were so many gods. |
|
[288] Men, women, a bird, a
crocodile, a calf, a dog, a snake, an onion, a leek, were deified. Besides that, they
filled almost all places with spirits called demons: the plains, with Pan and Panises, or
Satyrs; the woods, with Fauns and Nymphs; the sea, with Tritons and other Nymphs; every
river and fountain, with a ghost of his name and with Nymphs; every house, with its Lares,
or familiars; every man, with his Genius; Hell, with ghosts and spiritual officers, as
Charon, Cerberus, and the Furies; and in the night time, all places with larvae, lemures,
ghosts of men deceased, and a whole kingdom of fairies and bugbears. They have also
ascribed divinity, and built temples, to mere accidents and qualities; such as are time,
night, day, peace, concord, love, contention, virtue, honour, health, rust, fever, and the
like; which when they prayed for, or against, they prayed to as if there were ghosts of
those names hanging over their heads, and letting fall or withholding that good, or evil,
for or against which they prayed. They invoked also their own wit, by the name of Muses;
their own ignorance, by the name of Fortune; their own lust, by the name of Cupid; their
own rage, by the name Furies; their own privy members by the name of Priapus; and
attributed their pollutions to incubi and succubae: insomuch as there was nothing which a
poet could introduce as a person in his poem which they did not make either a god or a
devil. |
|
[289] The same authors of
the religion of the Gentiles, observing the second ground for religion, which is men's
ignorance of causes, and thereby their aptness to attribute their fortune to causes on
which there was no dependence at all apparent, took occasion to obtrude on their
ignorance, instead of second causes, a kind of second and ministerial gods; ascribing the
cause of fecundity to Venus, the cause of arts to Apollo, of subtlety and craft to
Mercury, of tempests and storms to Aeolus, and of other effects to other gods; insomuch as
there was amongst the heathen almost as great variety of gods as of business. |
|
[290] And to the worship
which naturally men conceived fit to be used towards their gods, namely, oblations,
prayers, thanks, and the rest formerly named, the same legislators of the Gentiles have
added their images, both in picture and sculpture, that the more ignorant sort (that is to
say, the most part or generality of the people), thinking the gods for whose
representation they were made were really included and as it were housed within them,
might so much the more stand in fear of them: and endowed them with lands, and houses, and
officers, and revenues, set apart from all other human uses; that is, consecrated, made
holy to those their idols; as caverns, groves, woods, mountains, and whole islands; and
have attributed to them, not only the shapes, some of men, some of beasts, some of
monsters, but also the faculties and passions of men and beasts; as sense, speech, sex,
lust, generation, and this not only by mixing one with another to propagate the kind of
gods, but also by mixing with men and women to beget mongrel gods, and but inmates of
heaven, as Bacchus, Hercules, and others; besides, anger, revenge, and other passions of
living creatures, and the actions proceeding from them, as fraud, theft, adultery, sodomy,
and any vice that may be taken for an effect of power or a cause of pleasure; and all such
vices as amongst men are taken to be against law rather than against honour. |
|
[291] Lastly, to the
prognostics of time to come, which are naturally but conjectures upon the experience of
time past, and supernaturally, divine revelation, the same authors of the religion of the
Gentiles, partly upon pretended experience, partly upon pretended revelation, have added
innumerable other superstitious ways of divination, and made men believe they should find
their fortunes, sometimes in the ambiguous or senseless answers of the priests at Delphi,
Delos, Ammon, and other famous oracles; which answers were made ambiguous by design, to
own the event both ways; or absurd, by the intoxicating vapour of the place, which is very
frequent in sulphurous caverns: sometimes in the leaves of the Sibyls, of whose
prophecies, like those perhaps of Nostradamus (for the fragments now extant seem to be the
invention of later times), there were some books in reputation in the time of the Roman
republic: sometimes in the insignificant speeches of madmen, supposed to be possessed with
a divine spirit, which possession they called enthusiasm; and these kinds of foretelling
events were accounted theomancy, or prophecy: sometimes in the aspect of the stars at
their nativity, which was called horoscopy, and esteemed a part of judiciary astrology:
sometimes in their own hopes and fears, called and fears, called thumomancy, or presage:
sometimes in the prediction of witches that pretended conference with the dead, which is
called necromancy, conjuring, and witchcraft, and is but juggling and confederate knavery:
sometimes in the casual flight or feeding of birds, called augury: sometimes in the
entrails of a sacrificed beast, which was haruspicy: sometimes in dreams: sometimes in
croaking of ravens, or chattering of birds: sometimes in the lineaments of the face, which
was called metoposcopy; or by palmistry in the lines of the hand, in casual words called
omina: sometimes in monsters or unusual accidents; as eclipses, comets, rare meteors,
earthquakes, inundations, uncouth births, and the like, which they called portenta, and
ostenta, because they thought them to portend or foreshow some great calamity to come:
sometimes in mere lottery, as cross and pile; counting holes in a sieve; dipping of verses
in Homer and Virgil; and innumerable other such vain conceits. So easy are men to be drawn
to believe anything from such men as have gotten credit with them; and can with
gentleness, and dexterity, take hold of their fear and ignorance. |
|
[292] And therefore the
first founders and legislators of Commonwealths amongst the Gentiles, whose ends were only
to keep the people in obedience and peace, have in all places taken care: first, to
imprint their minds a belief that those precepts which they gave concerning religion might
not be thought to proceed from their own device, but from the dictates of some god or
other spirit; or else that they themselves were of a higher nature than mere mortals, that
their laws might the more easily be received; so Numa Pompilius pretended to receive the
ceremonies he instituted amongst the Romans from the nymph Egeria and the first king and
founder of the kingdom of Peru pretended himself and his wife to be the children of the
sun; and Mahomet, to set up his new religion, pretended to have conferences with the Holy
Ghost in form of a dove. Secondly, they have had a care to make it believed that the same
things were displeasing to the gods which were forbidden by the laws. Thirdly, to
prescribe ceremonies, supplications, sacrifices, and festivals by which they were to
believe the anger of the gods might be appeased; and that ill success in war, great
contagions of sickness, earthquakes, and each man's private misery came from the anger of
the gods; and their anger from the neglect of their worship, or the forgetting or
mistaking some point of the ceremonies required. And though amongst the ancient Romans men
were not forbidden to deny that which in the poets is written of the pains and pleasures
after this life, which divers of great authority and gravity in that state have in their
harangues openly derided, yet that belief was always more cherished, than the contrary. |
|
[293] And by these, and
such other institutions, they obtained in order to their end, which was the peace of the
Commonwealth, that the common people in their misfortunes, laying the fault on neglect, or
error in their ceremonies, or on their own disobedience to the laws, were the less apt to
mutiny against their governors. And being entertained with the pomp and pastime of
festivals and public games made in honour of the gods, needed nothing else but bread to
keep them from discontent, murmuring, and commotion against the state. And therefore the
Romans, that had conquered the greatest part of the then known world, made no scruple of
tolerating any religion whatsoever in the city of Rome itself, unless it had something in
it that could not consist with their civil government; nor do we read that any religion
was there forbidden but that of the Jews, who (being the peculiar kingdom of God) thought
it unlawful to acknowledge subjection to any mortal king or state whatsoever. And thus you
see how the religion of the Gentiles was a part of their policy. |
|
[294] But where God himself
by supernatural revelation planted religion, there he also made to himself a peculiar
kingdom, and gave laws, not only of behaviour towards himself, but also towards one
another; and thereby in the kingdom of God, the policy and laws civil are a part of
religion; and therefore the distinction of temporal and spiritual domination hath there no
place. It is true that God is king of all the earth; yet may He be king of a peculiar and
chosen nation. For there is no more incongruity therein than that he that hath the general
command of the whole army should have withal a peculiar regiment or company of his own.
God is king of all the earth by His power, but of His chosen people, He is king by
covenant. But to speak more largely of the kingdom of God, both by nature and covenant, I
have in the following discourse assigned another place. |
|
[295] From the propagation
of religion, it is not hard to understand the causes of the resolution of the same into
its first seeds or principles; which are only an opinion of a deity, and powers invisible
and supernatural; that can never be so abolished out of human nature, but that new
religions may again be made to spring out of them by the culture of such men as for such
purpose are in reputation. |
|
[296] For seeing all formed
religion is founded at first upon the faith which a multitude hath in some one person,
whom they believe not only to be a wise man and to labour to procure their happiness, but
also to be a holy man to whom God Himself vouchsafeth to declare His will supernaturally,
it followeth necessarily when they that have the government of religion shall come to have
either the wisdom of those men, their sincerity, or their love suspected, or that they
shall be unable to show any probable token of divine revelation, that the religion which
they desire to uphold must be suspected likewise and (without the fear of the civil sword)
contradicted and rejected. |
|
[297] That which taketh
away the reputation of wisdom in him that formeth a religion, or addeth to it when it is
already formed, is the enjoining of a belief of contradictories: for both parts of a
contradiction cannot possibly be true, and therefore to enjoin the belief of them is an
argument of ignorance, which detects the author in that, and discredits him in all things
else he shall propound as from revelation supernatural: which revelation a man may indeed
have of many things above, but of nothing against natural reason. |
|
[298] That which taketh
away the reputation of sincerity is the doing or saying of such things as appear to be
signs that what they require other men to believe is not believed by themselves; all which
doings or sayings are therefore called scandalous because they be stumbling-blocks that
make men to fall in the way of religion: as injustice, cruelty, profaneness, avarice, and
luxury. For who can believe that he that doth ordinarily such actions, as proceed from any
of these roots, believeth there is any such invisible power to be feared as he affrighteth
other men withal for lesser faults? |
|
[299] That which taketh
away the reputation of love is the being detected of private ends: as when the belief they
require of others conduceth, or seemeth to conduce, to the acquiring of dominion, riches,
dignity, or secure pleasure to themselves only or specially. For that which men reap
benefit by to themselves they are thought to do for their own sakes, and not for love of
others. |
|
[300] Lastly, the testimony
that men can render of divine calling can be no other than the operation of miracles, or
true prophecy (which also is a miracle), or extraordinary felicity. And therefore, to
those points of religion which have been received from them that did such miracles, those
that are added by such as approve not their calling by some miracle obtain no greater
belief than what the custom and laws of the places in which they be educated have wrought
into them. For as in natural things men of judgement require natural signs and arguments,
so in supernatural things they require signs supernatural (which are miracles) before they
consent inwardly and from their hearts. |
|
[301] All which causes of
the weakening of men's faith do manifestly appear in the examples following. First, we
have the example of the children of Israel, who, when Moses that had approved his calling
to them by miracles, and by the happy conduct of them out of Egypt, was absent but forty
days, revolted from the worship of the true God recommended to them by him, and, setting
up (Exodus, 32.1,2) a golden calf for their god, relapsed into the idolatry of the
Egyptians from whom they had been so lately delivered. And again, after Moses, Aaron,
Joshua, and that generation which had seen the great works of God in Israel were dead,
another generation arose and served Baal ( Judges, 2.11). So that Miracles failing, faith
also failed. |
|
[302] Again, when the sons
of Samuel, being constituted by their father judges in Beer-sheba, received bribes and
judged unjustly, the people of Israel refused any more to have God to be their king in
other manner than He was king of other people, and therefore cried out to Samuel to choose
them a king after the manner of the nations (I Samuel, 8.3). So that justice failing,
faith also failed, insomuch as they deposed their God from reigning over them. |
|
[303] And whereas in the
planting of Christian religion the oracles ceased in all parts of the Roman Empire, and
the number of Christians increased wonderfully every day and in every place by the
preaching of the Apostles and Evangelists, a great part of that success may reasonably be
attributed to the contempt into which the priests of the Gentiles of that time had brought
themselves by their uncleanness, avarice, and juggling between princes. Also the religion
of the Church of Rome was partly for the same cause abolished in England and many other
parts of Christendom, insomuch as the failing of virtue in the pastors maketh faith fail
in the people, and partly from bringing of the philosophy and doctrine of Aristotle into
religion by the Schoolmen; from whence there arose so many contradictions and absurdities
as brought the clergy into a reputation both of ignorance and of fraudulent intention, and
inclined people to revolt from them, either against the will of their own princes as in
France and Holland, or with their will as in England. |
|
[304] Lastly, amongst the
points by the Church of Rome declared necessary for salvation, there be so many manifestly
to the advantage of the Pope so many of his spiritual subjects residing in the territories
of other Christian princes that, were it not for the mutual emulation of those princes,
they might without war or trouble exclude all foreign authority, as easily as it has been
excluded in England. For who is there that does not see to whose benefit it conduceth to
have it believed that a king hath not his authority from Christ unless a bishop crown him?
That a king, if he be a priest, cannot marry? That whether a prince be born in lawful
marriage, or not, must be judged by authority from Rome? That subjects may be freed from
their allegiance if by the court of Rome the king be judged a heretic? That a king, as
Childeric of France, may be deposed by a Pope, as Pope Zachary, for no cause, and his
kingdom given to one of his subjects? That the clergy, and regulars, in what country
soever, shall be exempt from the jurisdiction of their king in cases criminal? Or who does
not see to whose profit redound the fees of private Masses, and vales of purgatory, with
other signs of private interest enough to mortify the most lively faith, if, as I said,
the civil magistrate and custom did not more sustain it than any opinion they have of the
sanctity, wisdom, or probity of their teachers? So that I may attribute all the changes of
religion in the world to one and the same cause, and that is unpleasing priests; and those
not only amongst catholics, but even in that Church that hath presumed most of
reformation. |
|
[305] CHAPTER XIII OF THE
NATURAL CONDITION OF MANKIND AS CONCERNING THEIR FELICITY AND MISERY |
| In what ways are people alike? |
[306] NATURE hath made men
so equal in the faculties of body and mind as that, though there be found one man
sometimes manifestly stronger in body or of quicker mind than another, yet when all is
reckoned together the difference between man and man is not so considerable as that one
man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend as well as
he. For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest,
either by secret machination or by confederacy with others that are in the same danger
with himself. |
| How are we equal? |
[307] And as to the
faculties of the mind, setting aside the arts grounded upon words, and especially that
skill of proceeding upon general and infallible rules, called science, which very few have
and but in few things, as being not a native faculty born with us, nor attained, as
prudence, while we look after somewhat else, I find yet a greater equality amongst men
than that of strength. For prudence is but experience, which equal time equally bestows on
all men in those things they equally apply themselves unto. That which may perhaps make
such equality incredible is but a vain conceit of one's own wisdom, which almost all men
think they have in a greater degree than the vulgar; that is, than all men but themselves,
and a few others, whom by fame, or for concurring with themselves, they approve. For such
is the nature of men that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or
more eloquent or more learned, yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as
themselves; for they see their own wit at hand, and other men's at a distance. But this
proveth rather that men are in that point equal, than unequal. For there is not ordinarily
a greater sign of the equal distribution of anything than that every man is contented with
his share. |
| What is the result of our equality? |
[308] From this equality of
ability ariseth equality of hope in the attaining of our ends. And therefore if any two
men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies;
and in the way to their end (which is principally their own conservation, and sometimes
their delectation only) endeavour to destroy or subdue one another. And from hence it
comes to pass that where an invader hath no more to fear than another man's single power,
if one plant, sow, build, or possess a convenient seat, others may probably be expected to
come prepared with forces united to dispossess and deprive him, not only of the fruit of
his labour, but also of his life or liberty. And the invader again is in the like danger
of another. |
|
[309] And from this
diffidence of one another, there is no way for any man to secure himself so reasonable as
anticipation; that is, by force, or wiles, to master the persons of all men he can so long
till he see no other power great enough to endanger him: and this is no more than his own
conservation requireth, and is generally allowed. Also, because there be some that, taking
pleasure in contemplating their own power in the acts of conquest, which they pursue
farther than their security requires, if others, that otherwise would be glad to be at
ease within modest bounds, should not by invasion increase their power, they would not be
able, long time, by standing only on their defence, to subsist. And by consequence, such
augmentation of dominion over men being necessary to a man's conservation, it ought to be
allowed him. |
|
[310] Again, men have no
pleasure (but on the contrary a great deal of grief) in keeping company where there is no
power able to overawe them all. For every man looketh that his companion should value him
at the same rate he sets upon himself, and upon all signs of contempt or undervaluing
naturally endeavours, as far as he dares (which amongst them that have no common power to
keep them in quiet is far enough to make them destroy each other), to extort a greater
value from his contemners, by damage; and from others, by the example. |
|
[311] So that in the nature
of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly,
diffidence; thirdly, glory. |
|
[312] The first maketh men
invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation. The first use
violence, to make themselves masters of other men's persons, wives, children, and cattle;
the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different
opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their persons or by reflection
in their kindred, their friends, their nation, their profession, or their name. |
| What is life like in the state of nature? |
[313] Hereby it is manifest
that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in
that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man.
For war consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting, but in a tract of time,
wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of
time is to be considered in the nature of war, as it is in the nature of weather. For as
the nature of foul weather lieth not in a shower or two of rain, but in an inclination
thereto of many days together: so the nature of war consisteth not in actual fighting, but
in the known disposition thereto during all the time there is no assurance to the
contrary. All other time is peace. |
|
[314] Whatsoever therefore
is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent
to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their
own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry,
because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no
navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious
building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no
knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society;
and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of
man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. |
| What evidence does Hobbes offer that life
is like this? |
[315] It may seem strange
to some man that has not well weighed these things that Nature should thus dissociate and
render men apt to invade and destroy one another: and he may therefore, not trusting to
this inference, made from the passions, desire perhaps to have the same confirmed by
experience. Let him therefore consider with himself: when taking a journey, he arms
himself and seeks to go well accompanied; when going to sleep, he locks his doors; when
even in his house he locks his chests; and this when he knows there be laws and public
officers, armed, to revenge all injuries shall be done him; what opinion he has of his
fellow subjects, when he rides armed; of his fellow citizens, when he locks his doors; and
of his children, and servants, when he locks his chests. Does he not there as much accuse
mankind by his actions as I do by my words? But neither of us accuse man's nature in it.
The desires, and other passions of man, are in themselves no sin. No more are the actions
that proceed from those passions till they know a law that forbids them; which till laws
be made they cannot know, nor can any law be made till they have agreed upon the person
that shall make it. |
|
[316] It may peradventure
be thought there was never such a time nor condition of war as this; and I believe it was
never generally so, over all the world: but there are many places where they live so now.
For the savage people in many places of America, except the government of small families,
the concord whereof dependeth on natural lust, have no government at all, and live at this
day in that brutish manner, as I said before. Howsoever, it may be perceived what manner
of life there would be, where there were no common power to fear, by the manner of life
which men that have formerly lived under a peaceful government use to degenerate into a
civil war. |
|
[317] But though there had
never been any time wherein particular men were in a condition of war one against another,
yet in all times kings and persons of sovereign authority, because of their independency,
are in continual jealousies, and in the state and posture of gladiators, having their
weapons pointing, and their eyes fixed on one another; that is, their forts, garrisons,
and guns upon the frontiers of their kingdoms, and continual spies upon their neighbours,
which is a posture of war. But because they uphold thereby the industry of their subjects,
there does not follow from it that misery which accompanies the liberty of particular men. |
| Where is justice in the state of nature? |
[318] To this war of every
man against every man, this also is consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of
right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no place. Where there is no common
power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice. Force and fraud are in war the two
cardinal virtues. Justice and injustice are none of the faculties neither of the body nor
mind. If they were, they might be in a man that were alone in the world, as well as his
senses and passions. They are qualities that relate to men in society, not in solitude. It
is consequent also to the same condition that there be no propriety, no dominion, no mine
and thine distinct; but only that to be every man's that he can get, and for so long as he
can keep it. And thus much for the ill condition which man by mere nature is actually
placed in; though with a possibility to come out of it, consisting partly in the passions,
partly in his reason. |
|
[319] The passions that
incline men to peace are: fear of death; desire of such things as are necessary to
commodious living; and a hope by their industry to obtain them. And reason suggesteth
convenient articles of peace upon which men may be drawn to agreement. These articles are
they which otherwise are called the laws of nature, whereof I shall speak more
particularly in the two following chapters. |
|
[320] CHAPTER XIV OF THE
FIRST AND SECOND NATURAL LAWS, AND OF CONTRACTS |
| What is the right of nature? |
[321] THE right of nature,
which writers commonly call jus naturale, is the liberty each man hath to use his own
power as he will himself for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his
own life; and consequently, of doing anything which, in his own judgement and reason, he
shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto. |
|
[322] By liberty is
understood, according to the proper signification of the word, the absence of external
impediments; which impediments may oft take away part of a man's power to do what he
would, but cannot hinder him from using the power left him according as his judgement and
reason shall dictate to him. |
| What is the difference between a right and
a law? |
[323] A law of nature, lex
naturalis, is a precept, or general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden
to do that which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the
same, and to omit that by which he thinketh it may be best preserved. For though they that
speak of this subject use to confound jus and lex, right and law, yet they ought to be
distinguished, because right consisteth in liberty to do, or to forbear; whereas law
determineth and bindeth to one of them: so that law and right differ as much as obligation
and liberty, which in one and the same matter are inconsistent. |
| What are the laws of nature? Note these in
the rest of this chapter and the next. |
[324] And because the
condition of man (as hath been declared in the precedent chapter) is a condition of war of
every one against every one, in which case every one is governed by his own reason, and
there is nothing he can make use of that may not be a help unto him in preserving his life
against his enemies; it followeth that in such a condition every man has a right to every
thing, even to one another's body. And therefore, as long as this natural right of every
man to every thing endureth, there can be no security to any man, how strong or wise
soever he be, of living out the time which nature ordinarily alloweth men to live. And
consequently it is a precept, or general rule of reason: that every man ought to endeavour
peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may
seek and use all helps and advantages of war. The first branch of which rule containeth
the first and fundamental law of nature, which is: to seek peace and follow it. The
second, the sum of the right of nature, which is: by all means we can to defend ourselves. |
|
[325] From this fundamental
law of nature, by which men are commanded to endeavour peace, is derived this second law:
that a man be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defence of
himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be
contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against
himself. For as long as every man holdeth this right, of doing anything he liketh; so long
are all men in the condition of war. But if other men will not lay down their right, as
well as he, then there is no reason for anyone to divest himself of his: for that were to
expose himself to prey, which no man is bound to, rather than to dispose himself to peace.
This is that law of the gospel: Whatsoever you require that others should do to you, that
do ye to them. And that law of all men, quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris. |
| How can we give up a right? |
[326] To lay down a man's
right to anything is to divest himself of the liberty of hindering another of the benefit
of his own right to the same. For he that renounceth or passeth away his right giveth not
to any other man a right which he had not before, because there is nothing to which every
man had not right by nature, but only standeth out of his way that he may enjoy his own
original right without hindrance from him, not without hindrance from another. So that the
effect which redoundeth to one man by another man's defect of right is but so much
diminution of impediments to the use of his own right original. |
|
[327] Right is laid aside,
either by simply renouncing it, or by transferring it to another. By simply renouncing,
when he cares not to whom the benefit thereof redoundeth. By transferring, when he
intendeth the benefit thereof to some certain person or persons. And when a man hath in
either manner abandoned or granted away his right, then is he said to be obliged, or
bound, not to hinder those to whom such right is granted, or abandoned, from the benefit
of it: and that he ought, and it is duty, not to make void that voluntary act of his own:
and that such hindrance is injustice, and injury, as being sine jure; the right being
before renounced or transferred. So that injury or injustice, in the controversies of the
world, is somewhat like to that which in the disputations of scholars is called absurdity.
For as it is there called an absurdity to contradict what one maintained in the beginning;
so in the world it is called injustice, and injury voluntarily to undo that which from the
beginning he had voluntarily done. The way by which a man either simply renounceth or
transferreth his right is a declaration, or signification, by some voluntary and
sufficient sign, or signs, that he doth so renounce or transfer, or hath so renounced or
transferred the same, to him that accepteth it. And these signs are either words only, or
actions only; or, as it happeneth most often, both words and actions. And the same are the
bonds, by which men are bound and obliged: bonds that have their strength, not from their
own nature (for nothing is more easily broken than a man's word), but from fear of some
evil consequence upon the rupture. |
|
[328] Whensoever a man
transferreth his right, or renounceth it, it is either in consideration of some right
reciprocally transferred to himself, or for some other good he hopeth for thereby. For it
is a voluntary act: and of the voluntary acts of every man, the object is some good to
himself. And therefore there be some rights which no man can be understood by any words,
or other signs, to have abandoned or transferred. As first a man cannot lay down the right
of resisting them that assault him by force to take away his life, because he cannot be
understood to aim thereby at any good to himself. The same may be said of wounds, and
chains, and imprisonment, both because there is no benefit consequent to such patience, as
there is to the patience of suffering another to be wounded or imprisoned, as also because
a man cannot tell when he seeth men proceed against him by violence whether they intend
his death or not. And lastly the motive and end for which this renouncing and transferring
of right is introduced is nothing else but the security of a man's person, in his life,
and in the means of so preserving life as not to be weary of it. And therefore if a man by
words, or other signs, seem to despoil himself of the end for which those signs were
intended, he is not to be understood as if he meant it, or that it was his will, but that
he was ignorant of how such words and actions were to be interpreted. |
| Note definition of a contract. |
[329] The mutual
transferring of right is that which men call contract. |
|
[330] There is difference
between transferring of right to the thing, the thing, and transferring or tradition, that
is, delivery of the thing itself. For the thing may be delivered together with the
translation of the right, as in buying and selling with ready money, or exchange of goods
or lands, and it may be delivered some time after. |
|
[331] Again, one of the
contractors may deliver the thing contracted for on his part, and leave the other to
perform his part at some determinate time after, and in the meantime be trusted; and then
the contract on his part is called pact, or covenant: or both parts may contract now to
perform hereafter, in which cases he that is to perform in time to come, being trusted,
his performance is called keeping of promise, or faith, and the failing of performance, if
it be voluntary, violation of faith. |
|
[332] When the transferring
of right is not mutual, but one of the parties transferreth in hope to gain thereby
friendship or service from another, or from his friends; or in hope to gain the reputation
of charity, or magnanimity; or to deliver his mind from the pain of compassion; or in hope
of reward in heaven; this is not contract, but gift, free gift, grace: which words signify
one and the same thing. |
|
[333] Signs of contract are
either express or by inference. Express are words spoken with understanding of what they
signify: and such words are either of the time present or past; as, I give, I grant, I
have given, I have granted, I will that this be yours: or of the future; as, I will give,
I will grant, which words of the future are called promise. |
|
[334] Signs by inference
are sometimes the consequence of words; sometimes the consequence of silence; sometimes
the consequence of actions; sometimes the consequence of forbearing an action: and
generally a sign by inference, of any contract, is whatsoever sufficiently argues the will
of the contractor. |
|
[335] Words alone, if they
be of the time to come, and contain a bare promise, are an insufficient sign of a free
gift and therefore not obligatory. For if they be of the time to come, as, tomorrow I will
give, they are a sign I have not given yet, and consequently that my right is not
transferred, but remaineth till I transfer it by some other act. But if the words be of
the time present, or past, as, I have given, or do give to be delivered tomorrow, then is
my tomorrow's right given away today; and that by the virtue of the words, though there
were no other argument of my will. And there is a great difference in the signification of
these words, volo hoc tuum esse cras, and cras dabo; that is, between I will that this be
thine tomorrow, and, I will give it thee tomorrow: for the word I will, in the former
manner of speech, signifies an act of the will present; but in the latter, it signifies a
promise of an act of the will to come: and therefore the former words, being of the
present, transfer a future right; the latter, that be of the future, transfer nothing. But
if there be other signs of the will to transfer a right besides words; then, though the
gift be free, yet may the right be understood to pass by words of the future: as if a man
propound a prize to him that comes first to the end of a race, the gift is free; and
though the words be of the future, yet the right passeth: for if he would not have his
words so be understood, he should not have let them run. |
|
[336] In contracts the
right passeth, not only where the words are of the time present or past, but also where
they are of the future, because all contract is mutual translation, or change of right;
and therefore he that promiseth only, because he hath already received the benefit for
which he promiseth, is to be understood as if he intended the right should pass: for
unless he had been content to have his words so understood, the other would not have
performed his part first. And for that cause, in buying, and selling, and other acts of
contract, a promise is equivalent to a covenant, and therefore obligatory. |
|
[337] He that performeth
first in the case of a contract is said to merit that which he is to receive by the
performance of the other, and he hath it as due. Also when a prize is propounded to many,
which is to be given to him only that winneth, or money is thrown amongst many to be
enjoyed by them that catch it; though this be a free gift, yet so to win, or so to catch,
is to merit, and to have it as due. For the right is transferred in the propounding of the
prize, and in throwing down the money, though it be not determined to whom, but by the
event of the contention. But there is between these two sorts of merit this difference,
that in contract I merit by virtue of my own power and the contractor's need, but in this
case of free gift I am enabled to merit only by the benignity of the giver: in contract I
merit at the contractor's hand that he should depart with his right; in this case of gift,
I merit not that the giver should part with his right, but that when he has parted with
it, it should be mine rather than another's. And this I think to be the meaning of that
distinction of the Schools between meritum congrui and meritum condigni. For God Almighty,
having promised paradise to those men, hoodwinked with carnal desires, that can walk
through this world according to the precepts and limits prescribed by him, they say he
that shall so walk shall merit paradise ex congruo. But because no man can demand a right
to it by his own righteousness, or any other power in himself, but by the free grace of
God only, they say no man can merit paradise ex condigno. This, I say, I think is the
meaning of that distinction; but because disputers do not agree upon the signification of
their own terms of art longer than it serves their turn, I will not affirm anything of
their meaning: only this I say; when a gift is given indefinitely, as a prize to be
contended for, he that winneth meriteth, and may claim the prize as due. |
| What are the means of enforcing a contract?
Are contracts made in the state of nature valid? |
[338] If a covenant be made
wherein neither of the parties perform presently, but trust one another, in the condition
of mere nature (which is a condition of war of every man against every man) upon any
reasonable suspicion, it is void: but if there be a common power set over them both, with
right and force sufficient to compel performance, it is not void. For he that performeth
first has no assurance the other will perform after, because the bonds of words are too
weak to bridle men's ambition, avarice, anger, and other passions, without the fear of
some coercive power; which in the condition of mere nature, where all men are equal, and
judges of the justness of their own fears, cannot possibly be supposed. And therefore he
which performeth first does but betray himself to his enemy, contrary to the right he can
never abandon of defending his life and means of living. |
|
[339] But in a civil
estate, where there a power set up to constrain those that would otherwise violate their
faith, that fear is no more reasonable; and for that cause, he which by the covenant is to
perform first is obliged so to do. |
|
[340] The cause of fear,
which maketh such a covenant invalid, must be always something arising after the covenant
made, as some new fact or other sign of the will not to perform, else it cannot make the
covenant void. For that which could not hinder a man from promising ought not to be
admitted as a hindrance of performing. |
| What other qualifications does Hobbes
specify for contracts? |
[341] He that transferreth
any right transferreth the means of enjoying it, as far as lieth in his power. As he that
selleth land is understood to transfer the herbage and whatsoever grows upon it; nor can
he that sells a mill turn away the stream that drives it. And they that give to a man the
right of government in sovereignty are understood to give him the right of levying money
to maintain soldiers, and of appointing magistrates for the administration of justice. |
|
[342] To make covenants
with brute beasts is impossible, because not understanding our speech, they understand
not, nor accept of any translation of right, nor can translate any right to another: and
without mutual acceptation, there is no covenant. |
|
[343] To make covenant with
God is impossible but by mediation of such as God speaketh to, either by revelation
supernatural or by His lieutenants that govern under Him and in His name: for otherwise we
know not whether our covenants be accepted or not. And therefore they that vow anything
contrary to any law of nature, vow in vain, as being a thing unjust to pay such vow. And
if it be a thing commanded by the law of nature, it is not the vow, but the law that binds
them. |
|
[344] The matter or subject
of a covenant is always something that falleth under deliberation, for to covenant is an
act of the will; that is to say, an act, and the last act, of deliberation; and is
therefore always understood to be something to come, and which judged possible for him
that covenanteth to perform. |
|
[345] And therefore, to
promise that which is known to be impossible is no covenant. But if that prove impossible
afterwards, which before was thought possible, the covenant is valid and bindeth, though
not to the thing itself, yet to the value; or, if that also be impossible, to the
unfeigned endeavour of performing as much as is possible, for to more no man can be
obliged. |
|
[346] Men are freed of
their covenants two ways; by performing, or by being forgiven. For performance is the
natural end of obligation, and forgiveness the restitution of liberty, as being a
retransferring of that right in which the obligation consisted. |
|
[347] Covenants entered
into by fear, in the condition of mere nature, are obligatory. For example, if I covenant
to pay a ransom, or service for my life, to an enemy, I am bound by it. For it is a
contract, wherein one receiveth the benefit of life; the other is to receive money, or
service for it, and consequently, where no other law (as in the condition of mere nature)
forbiddeth the performance, the covenant is valid. Therefore prisoners of war, if trusted
with the payment of their ransom, are obliged to pay it: and if a weaker prince make a
disadvantageous peace with a stronger, for fear, he is bound to keep it; unless (as hath
been said before) there ariseth some new and just cause of fear to renew the war. And even
in Commonwealths, if I be forced to redeem myself from a thief by promising him money, I
am bound to pay it, till the civil law discharge me. For whatsoever I may lawfully do
without obligation, the same I may lawfully covenant to do through fear: and what I
lawfully covenant, I cannot lawfully break. |
|
[348] A former covenant
makes void a later. For a man that hath passed away his right to one man today hath it not
to pass tomorrow to another: and therefore the later promise passeth no right, but is
null. |
|
[349] A covenant not to
defend myself from force, by force, is always void. For (as I have shown before) no man
can transfer or lay down his right to save himself from death, wounds, and imprisonment,
the avoiding whereof is the only end of laying down any right; and therefore the promise
of not resisting force, in no covenant transferreth any right, nor is obliging. For though
a man may covenant thus, unless I do so, or so, kill me; he cannot covenant thus, unless I
do so, or so, I will not resist you when you come to kill me. For man by nature chooseth
the lesser evil, which is danger of death in resisting, rather than the greater, which is
certain and present death in not resisting. And this is granted to be true by all men, in
that they lead criminals to execution, and prison, with armed men, notwithstanding that
such criminals have consented to the law by which they are condemned. |
|
[350] A covenant to accuse
oneself, without assurance of pardon, is likewise invalid. For in the condition of nature
where every man is judge, there is no place for accusation: and in the civil state the
accusation is followed with punishment, which, being force, a man is not obliged not to
resist. The same is also true of the accusation of those by whose condemnation a man falls
into misery; as of a father, wife, or benefactor. For the testimony of such an accuser, if
it be not willingly given, is presumed to be corrupted by nature, and therefore not to be
received: and where a man's testimony is not to be credited, he is not bound to give it.
Also accusations upon torture are not to be reputed as testimonies. For torture is to be
used but as means of conjecture, and light, in the further examination and search of
truth: and what is in that case confessed tendeth to the ease of him that is tortured, not
to the informing of the torturers, and therefore ought not to have the credit of a
sufficient testimony: for whether he deliver himself by true or false accusation, he does
it by the right of preserving his own life. |
|
[351] The force of words
being (as I have formerly noted) too weak to hold men to the performance of their
covenants, there are in man's nature but two imaginable helps to strengthen it. And those
are either a fear of the consequence of breaking their word, or a glory or pride in
appearing not to need to break it. This latter is a generosity too rarely found to be
presumed on, especially in the pursuers of wealth, command, or sensual pleasure, which are
the greatest part of mankind. The passion to be reckoned upon is fear; whereof there be
two very general objects: one, the power of spirits invisible; the other, the power of
those men they shall therein offend. Of these two, though the former be the greater power,
yet the fear of the latter is commonly the greater fear. The fear of the former is in
every man his own religion, which hath place in the nature of man before civil society.
The latter hath not so; at least not place enough to keep men to their promises, because
in the condition of mere nature, the inequality of power is not discerned, but by the
event of battle. So that before the time of civil society, or in the interruption thereof
by war, there is nothing can strengthen a covenant of peace agreed on against the
temptations of avarice, ambition, lust, or other strong desire, but the fear of that
invisible power which they every one worship as God, and fear as a revenger of their
perfidy. All therefore that can be done between two men not subject to civil power is to
put one another to swear by the God he feareth: which swearing, or oath, is a form of
speech, added to a promise, by which he that promiseth signifieth that unless he perform
he renounceth the mercy of his God, or calleth to him for vengeance on himself. Such was
the heathen form, Let Jupiter kill me else, as I kill this beast. So is our form, I shall
do thus, and thus, so help me God. And this, with the rites and ceremonies which every one
useth in his own religion, that the fear of breaking faith might be the greater. |
|
[352] By this it appears
that an oath taken according to any other form, or rite, than his that sweareth is in vain
and no oath, and that there is no swearing by anything which the swearer thinks not God.
For though men have sometimes used to swear by their kings, for fear, or flattery; yet
they would have it thereby understood they attributed to them divine honour. And that
swearing unnecessarily by God is but profaning of his name: and swearing by other things,
as men do in common discourse, is not swearing, but an impious custom, gotten by too much
vehemence of talking. |
|
[353] It appears also that
the oath adds nothing to the obligation. For a covenant, if lawful, binds in the sight of
God, without the oath, as much as with it; if unlawful, bindeth not at all, though it be
confirmed with an oath. |
|
[354] CHAPTER XV OF OTHER
LAWS OF NATURE |
| Note continuation of the laws of nature. |
[355] FROM that law of
nature by which we are obliged to transfer to another such rights as, being retained,
hinder the peace of mankind, there followeth a third; which is this: that men perform
their covenants made; without which covenants are in vain, and but empty words; and the
right of all men to all things remaining, we are still in the condition of war. And in
this law of nature consisteth the fountain and original of justice. For where no covenant
hath preceded, there hath no right been transferred, and every man has right to everything
and consequently, no action can be unjust. But when a covenant is made, then to break it
is unjust and the definition of injustice is no other than the not performance of
covenant. And whatsoever is not unjust is just. |
|
[356] But because covenants
of mutual trust, where there is a fear of not performance on either part (as hath been
said in the former chapter), are invalid, though the original of justice be the making of
covenants, yet injustice actually there can be none till the cause of such fear be taken
away; which, while men are in the natural condition of war, cannot be done. Therefore
before the names of just and unjust can have place, there must be some coercive power to
compel men equally to the performance of their covenants, by the terror of some punishment
greater than the benefit they expect by the breach of their covenant, and to make good
that propriety which by mutual contract men acquire in recompense of the universal right
they abandon: and such power there is none before the erection of a Commonwealth. And this
is also to be gathered out of the ordinary definition of justice in the Schools, for they
say that justice is the constant will of giving to every man his own. And therefore where
there is no own, that is, no propriety, there is no injustice; and where there is no
coercive power erected, that is, where there is no Commonwealth, there is no propriety,
all men having right to all things: therefore where there is no Commonwealth, there
nothing is unjust. So that the nature of justice consisteth in keeping of valid covenants,
but the validity of covenants begins not but with the constitution of a civil power
sufficient to compel men to keep them: and then it is also that propriety begins. |
|
[357] The fool hath said in
his heart, there is no such thing as justice, and sometimes also with his tongue,
seriously alleging that every man's conservation and contentment being committed to his
own care, there could be no reason why every man might not do what he thought conduced
thereunto: and therefore also to make, or not make; keep, or not keep, covenants was not
against reason when it conduced to one's benefit. He does not therein deny that there be
covenants; and that they are sometimes broken, sometimes kept; and that such breach of
them may be called injustice, and the observance of them justice: but he questioneth
whether injustice, taking away the fear of God (for the same fool hath said in his heart
there is no God), not sometimes stand with that reason which dictateth to every man his
own good; and particularly then, when it conduceth to such a benefit as shall put a man in
a condition to neglect not only the dispraise and revilings, but also the power of other
men. The kingdom of God is gotten by violence: but what if it could be gotten by unjust
violence? Were it against reason so to get it, when it is impossible to receive hurt by
it? And if it be not against reason, it is not against justice: or else justice is not to
be approved for good. From such reasoning as this, successful wickedness hath obtained the
name of virtue: and some that in all other things have disallowed the violation of faith,
yet have allowed it when it is for the getting of a kingdom. And the heathen that believed
that Saturn was deposed by his son Jupiter believed nevertheless the same Jupiter to be
the avenger of injustice, somewhat like to a piece of law in Coke's Commentaries on
Littleton; where he says if the right heir of the crown be attainted of treason, yet the
crown shall descend to him, and eo instante the attainder be void: from which instances a
man will be very prone to infer that when the heir apparent of a kingdom shall kill him
that is in possession, though his father, you may call it injustice, or by what other name
you will; yet it can never be against reason, seeing all the voluntary actions of men tend
to the benefit of themselves; and those actions are most reasonable that conduce most to
their ends. This specious reasoning is nevertheless false. |
|
[358] For the question is
not of promises mutual, where there is no security of performance on either side, as when
there is no civil power erected over the parties promising; for such promises are no
covenants: but either where one of the parties has performed already, or where there is a
power to make him perform, there is the question whether it be against reason; that is,
against the benefit of the other to perform, or not. And I say it is not against reason.
For the manifestation whereof we are to consider; first, that when a man doth a thing,
which notwithstanding anything can be foreseen and reckoned on tendeth to his own
destruction, howsoever some accident, which he could not expect, arriving may turn it to
his benefit; yet such events do not make it reasonably or wisely done. Secondly, that in a
condition of war, wherein every man to every man, for want of a common power to keep them
all in awe, is an enemy, there is no man can hope by his own strength, or wit, to himself
from destruction without the help of confederates; where every one expects the same
defence by the confederation that any one else does: and therefore he which declares he
thinks it reason to deceive those that help him can in reason expect no other means of
safety than what can be had from his own single power. He, therefore, that breaketh his
covenant, and consequently declareth that he thinks he may with reason do so, cannot be
received into any society that unite themselves for peace and defence but by the error of
them that receive him; nor when he is received be retained in it without seeing the danger
of their error; which errors a man cannot reasonably reckon upon as the means of his
security: and therefore if he be left, or cast out of society, he perisheth; and if he
live in society, it is by the errors of other men, which he could not foresee nor reckon
upon, and consequently against the reason of his preservation; and so, as all men that
contribute not to his destruction forbear him only out of ignorance of what is good for
themselves. |
|
[359] As for the instance
of gaining the secure and perpetual felicity of heaven by any way, it is frivolous; there
being but one way imaginable, and that is not breaking, but keeping of covenant. |
|
[360] And for the other
instance of attaining sovereignty by rebellion; it is manifest that, though the event
follow, yet because it cannot reasonably be expected, but rather the contrary, and because
by gaining it so, others are taught to gain the same in like manner, the attempt thereof
is against reason. Justice therefore, that is to say, keeping of covenant, is a rule of
reason by which we are forbidden to do anything destructive to our life, and consequently
a law of nature. |
|
[361] There be some that
proceed further and will not have the law of nature to be those rules which conduce to the
preservation of man's life on earth, but to the attaining of an eternal felicity after
death; to which they think the breach of covenant may conduce, and consequently be just
and reasonable; such are they that think it a work of merit to kill, or depose, or rebel
against the sovereign power constituted over them by their own consent. But because there
is no natural knowledge of man's estate after death, much less of the reward that is then
to be given to breach of faith, but only a belief grounded upon other men's saying that
they know it supernaturally or that they know those that knew them that knew others that
knew it supernaturally, breach of faith cannot be called a precept of reason or nature. |
|
[362] Others, that allow
for a law of nature the keeping of faith, do nevertheless make exception of certain
persons; as heretics, and such as use not to perform their covenant to others; and this
also is against reason. For if any fault of a man be sufficient to discharge our covenant
made, the same ought in reason to have been sufficient to have hindered the making of it. |
|
[363] The names of just and
unjust when they are attributed to men, signify one thing, and when they are attributed to
actions, another. When they are attributed to men, they signify conformity, or
inconformity of manners, to reason. But when they are attributed to action they signify
the conformity, or inconformity to reason, not of manners, or manner of life, but of
particular actions. A just man therefore is he that taketh all the care he can that his
actions may be all just; and an unjust man is he that neglecteth it. And such men are more
often in our language styled by the names of righteous and unrighteous than just and
unjust though the meaning be the same. Therefore a righteous man does not lose that title
by one or a few unjust actions that proceed from sudden passion, or mistake of things or
persons, nor does an unrighteous man lose his character for such actions as he does, or
forbears to do, for fear: because his will is not framed by the justice, but by the
apparent benefit of what he is to do. That which gives to human actions the relish of
justice is a certain nobleness or gallantness of courage, rarely found, by which a man
scorns to be beholding for the contentment of his life to fraud, or breach of promise.
This justice of the manners is that which is meant where justice is called a virtue; and
injustice, a vice. |
|
[364] But the justice of
actions denominates men, not just, but guiltless: and the injustice of the same (which is
also called injury) gives them but the name of guilty. |
|
[365] Again, the injustice
of manners is the disposition or aptitude to do injury, and is injustice before it proceed
to act, and without supposing any individual person injured. But the injustice of an
action (that is to say, injury) supposeth an individual person injured; namely him to whom
the covenant was made: and therefore many times the injury is received by one man when the
damage redoundeth to another. As when the master commandeth his servant to give money to
stranger; if it be not done, the injury is done to the master, whom he had before
covenanted to obey; but the damage redoundeth to the stranger, to whom he had no
obligation, and therefore could not injure him. And so also in Commonwealths private men
may remit to one another their debts, but not robberies or other violences, whereby they
are endamaged; because the detaining of debt is an injury to themselves, but robbery and
violence are injuries to the person of the Commonwealth. |
|
[366] Whatsoever is done to
a man, conformable to his own will signified to the doer, is not injury to him. For if he
that doeth it hath not passed away his original right to do what he please by some
antecedent covenant, there is no breach of covenant, and therefore no injury done him. And
if he have, then his will to have it done, being signified, is a release of that covenant,
and so again there is no injury done him. |
|
[367] Justice of actions is
by writers divided into commutative and distributive: and the former they say consisteth
in proportion arithmetical; the latter in proportion geometrical. Commutative, therefore,
they place in the equality of value of the things contracted for; and distributive, in the
distribution of equal benefit to men of equal merit. As if it were injustice to sell
dearer than we buy, or to give more to a man than he merits. The value of all things
contracted for is measured by the appetite of the contractors, and therefore the just
value is that which they be contented to give. And merit (besides that which is by
covenant, where the performance on one part meriteth the performance of the other part,
and falls under justice commutative, not distributive) is not due by justice, but is
rewarded of grace only. And therefore this distinction, in the sense wherein it useth to
be expounded, is not right. To speak properly, commutative justice is the justice of a
contractor; that is, a performance of covenant in buying and selling, hiring and letting
to hire, lending and borrowing, exchanging, bartering, and other acts of contract. |
|
[368] And distributive
justice, the justice of an arbitrator; that is to say, the act of defining what is just.
Wherein, being trusted by them that make him arbitrator, if he perform his trust, he is
said to distribute to every man his own: and this is indeed just distribution, and may be
called, though improperly, distributive justice, but more properly equity, which also is a
law of nature, as shall be shown in due place. |
|
[369] As justice dependeth
on antecedent covenant; so does gratitude depend on antecedent grace; that is to say,
antecedent free gift; and is the fourth law of nature, which may be conceived in this
form: that a man which receiveth benefit from another of mere grace endeavour that he
which giveth it have no reasonable cause to repent him of his good will. For no man giveth
but with intention of good to himself, because gift is voluntary; and of all voluntary
acts, the object is to every man his own good; of which if men see they shall be
frustrated, there will be no beginning of benevolence or trust, nor consequently of mutual
help, nor of reconciliation of one man to another; and therefore they are to remain still
in the condition of war, which is contrary to the first and fundamental law of nature
which commandeth men to seek peace. The breach of this law is called ingratitude, and hath
the same relation to grace that injustice hath to obligation by covenant. |
|
[370] A fifth law of nature
is complaisance; that is to say, that every man strive to accommodate himself to the rest.
For the understanding whereof we may consider that there is in men's aptness to society a
diversity of nature, rising from their diversity of affections, not unlike to that we see
in stones brought together for building of an edifice. For as that stone which by the
asperity and irregularity of figure takes more room from others than itself fills, and for
hardness cannot be easily made plain, and thereby hindereth the building, is by the
builders cast away as unprofitable and troublesome: so also, a man that by asperity of
nature will strive to retain those things which to himself are superfluous, and to others
necessary, and for the stubbornness of his passions cannot be corrected, is to be left or
cast out of society as cumbersome thereunto. For seeing every man, not only by right, but
also by necessity of nature, is supposed to endeavour all he can to obtain that which is
necessary for his conservation, he that shall oppose himself against it for things
superfluous is guilty of the war that thereupon is to follow, and therefore doth that
which is contrary to the fundamental law of nature, which commandeth to seek peace. The
observers of this law may be called sociable, (the Latins call them commodi); the
contrary, stubborn, insociable, forward, intractable. |
|
[371] A sixth law of nature
is this: that upon caution of the future time, a man ought to pardon the offences past of
them that, repenting, desire it. For pardon is nothing but granting of peace; which though
granted to them that persevere in their hostility, be not peace, but fear; yet not granted
to them that give caution of the future time is sign of an aversion to peace, and
therefore contrary to the law of nature. |
|
[372] A seventh is: that in
revenges (that is, retribution of evil for evil), men look not at the greatness of the
evil past, but the greatness of the good to follow. Whereby we are forbidden to inflict
punishment with any other design than for correction of the offender, or direction of
others. For this law is consequent to the next before it, that commandeth pardon upon
security of the future time. Besides, revenge without respect to the example and profit to
come is a triumph, or glorying in the hurt of another, tending to no end (for the end is
always somewhat to come); and glorying to no end is vain-glory, and contrary to reason;
and to hurt without reason tendeth to the introduction of war, which is against the law of
nature, and is commonly styled by the name of cruelty. |
|
[373] And because all signs
of hatred, or contempt, provoke to fight; insomuch as most men choose rather to hazard
their life than not to be revenged, we may in the eighth place, for a law of nature, set
down this precept: that no man by deed, word, countenance, or gesture, declare hatred or
contempt of another. The breach of which law is commonly called contumely. |
|
[374] The question who is
the better man has no place in the condition of mere nature, where (as has been shown
before) all men are equal. The inequality that now is has been introduced by the laws
civil. I know that Aristotle in the first book of his Politics, for a foundation of his
doctrine, maketh men by nature, some more worthy to command, meaning the wiser sort, such
as he thought himself to be for his philosophy; others to serve, meaning those that had
strong bodies, but were not philosophers as he; as master and servant were not introduced
by consent of men, but by difference of wit: which is not only against reason, but also
against experience. For there are very few so foolish that had not rather govern
themselves than be governed by others: nor when the wise, in their own conceit, contend by
force with them who distrust their own wisdom, do they always, or often, or almost at any
time, get the victory. If nature therefore have made men equal, that equality is to be
acknowledged: or if nature have made men unequal, yet because men that think themselves
equal will not enter into conditions of peace, but upon equal terms, such equality must be
admitted. And therefore for the ninth law of nature, I put this: that every man
acknowledge another for his equal by nature. The breach of this precept is pride. |
|
[375] On this law dependeth
another: that at the entrance into conditions of peace, no man require to reserve to
himself any right which he is not content should he reserved to every one of the rest. As
it is necessary for all men that seek peace to lay down certain rights of nature; that is
to say, not to have liberty to do all they list, so is it necessary for man's life to
retain some: as right to govern their own bodies; enjoy air, water, motion, ways to go
from place to place; and all things else without which a man cannot live, or not live
well. If in this case, at the making of peace, men require for themselves that which they
would not have to be granted to others, they do contrary to the precedent law that
commandeth the acknowledgement of natural equality, and therefore also against the law of
nature. The observers of this law are those we call modest, and the breakers arrogant men.
The Greeks call the violation of this law pleonexia; that is, a desire of more than their
share. |
|
[376] Also, if a man he
trusted to judge between man and man, it is a precept of the law of nature that he deal
equally between them. For without that, the controversies of men cannot be determined but
by war. He therefore that is partial in judgement, doth what in him lies to deter men from
the use of judges and arbitrators, and consequently, against the fundamental law of
nature, is the cause of war. |
|
[377] The observance of
this law, from the equal distribution to each man of that which in reason belonged to him,
is called equity, and (as I have said before) distributive justice: the violation,
acception of persons, prosopolepsia. |
|
[378] And from this
followeth another law: that such things as cannot he divided be enjoyed in common, if it
can be; and if the quantity of the thing permit, without stint; otherwise proportionably
to the number of them that have right. For otherwise the distribution is unequal, and
contrary to equity. |
|
[379] But some things there
be that can neither be divided nor enjoyed in common. Then, the law of nature which
prescribeth equity requireth: that the entire right, or else (making the use alternate)
the first possession, be determined by lot. For equal distribution is of the law of
nature; and other means of equal distribution cannot be imagined. |
|
[380] Of lots there be two
sorts, arbitrary and natural. Arbitrary is that which is agreed on by the competitors;
natural is either primogeniture (which the Greek calls kleronomia, which signifies, given
by lot), or first seizure. |
|
[381] And therefore those
things which cannot be enjoyed in common, nor divided, ought to be adjudged to the first
possessor; and in some cases to the first born, as acquired by lot. |
|
[382] It is also a law of
nature: that all men that mediate peace he allowed safe conduct. For the law that
commandeth peace, as the end, commandeth intercession, as the means; and to intercession
the means is safe conduct. |
|
[383] And because, though
men be never so willing to observe these laws, there may nevertheless arise questions
concerning a man's action; first, whether it were done, or not done; secondly, if done,
whether against the law, or not against the law; the former whereof is called a question
of fact, the latter a question of right; therefore unless the parties to the question
covenant mutually to stand to the sentence of another, they are as far from peace as ever.
This other, to whose sentence they submit, is called an arbitrator. And therefore it is of
the law of nature that they that are at controversy submit their right to the judgement of
an arbitrator. |
|
[384] And seeing every man
is presumed to do all things in order to his own benefit, no man is a fit arbitrator in
his own cause: and if he were never so fit, yet equity allowing to each party equal
benefit, if one be admitted to be judge, the other is to be admitted also; and so the
controversy, that is, the cause of war, remains, against the law of nature. |
|
[385] For the same reason
no man in any cause ought to be received for arbitrator to whom greater profit, or honour,
or pleasure apparently ariseth out of the victory of one party than of the other: for he
hath taken, though an unavoidable bribe, yet a bribe; and no man can be obliged to trust
him. And thus also the controversy and the condition of war remaineth, contrary to the law
of nature. |
|
[386] And in a controversy
of fact, the judge being to give no more credit to one than to the other, if there be no
other arguments, must give credit to a third; or to a third and fourth; or more: for else
the question is undecided, and left to force, contrary to the law of nature. |
|
[387] These are the laws of
nature, dictating peace, for a means of the conservation of men in multitudes; and which
only concern the doctrine of civil society. There be other things tending to the
destruction of particular men; as drunkenness, and all other parts of intemperance, which
may therefore also be reckoned amongst those things which the law of nature hath
forbidden, but are not necessary to be mentioned, nor are pertinent enough to this place. |
| What is the sum of all the laws of nature? |
[388] And though this may
seem too subtle a deduction of the laws of nature to be taken notice of by all men,
whereof the most part are too busy in getting food, and the rest too negligent to
understand; yet to leave all men inexcusable, they have been contracted into one easy sum,
intelligible even to the meanest capacity; and that is: Do not that to another which thou
wouldest not have done to thyself, which showeth him that he has no more to do in learning
the laws of nature but, when weighing the actions of other men with his own they seem too
heavy, to put them into the other part of the balance, and his own into their place, that
his own passions and self-love may add nothing to the weight; and then there is none of
these laws of nature that will not appear unto him very reasonable. |
| In what way are these laws binding? |
[389] The laws of nature
oblige in foro interno; that is to say, they bind to a desire they should take place: but
in foro externo; that is, to the putting them in act, not always. For he that should be
modest and tractable, and perform all he promises in such time and place where no man else
should do so, should but make himself a prey to others, and procure his own certain ruin,
contrary to the ground of all laws of nature which tend to nature's preservation. And
again, he that having sufficient security that others shall observe the same laws towards
him, observes them not himself, seeketh not peace, but war, and consequently the
destruction of his nature by violence. |
|
[390] And whatsoever laws
bind in foro interno may be broken, not only by a fact contrary to the law, but also by a
fact according to it, in case a man think it contrary. For though his action in this case
be according to the law, yet his purpose was against the law; which, where the obligation
is in foro interno, is a breach. |
|
[391] The laws of nature
are immutable and eternal; for injustice, ingratitude, arrogance, pride, iniquity,
acception of persons, and the rest can never be made lawful. For it can never be that war
shall preserve life, and peace destroy it. |
|
[392] The same laws,
because they oblige only to a desire and endeavour, mean an unfeigned and constant
endeavour, are easy to be observed. For in that they require nothing but endeavour, he
that endeavoureth their performance fulfilleth them; and he that fulfilleth the law is
just. |
| What do good and evil consist of? |
[393] And the science of
them is the true and only moral philosophy. For moral philosophy is nothing else but the
science of what is good and evil in the conversation and society of mankind. Good and evil
are names that signify our appetites and aversions, which in different tempers, customs,
and doctrines of men are different: and diverse men differ not only in their judgement on
the senses of what is pleasant and unpleasant to the taste, smell, hearing, touch, and
sight; but also of what is conformable or disagreeable to reason in the actions of common
life. Nay, the same man, in diverse times, differs from himself; and one time praiseth,
that is, calleth good, what another time he dispraiseth, and calleth evil: from whence
arise disputes, controversies, and at last war. And therefore so long as a man is in the
condition of mere nature, which is a condition of war, private appetite is the measure of
good and evil: and consequently all men agree on this, that peace is good, and therefore
also the way or means of peace, which (as I have shown before) are justice, gratitude,
modesty, equity, mercy, and the rest of the laws of nature, are good; that is to say,
moral virtues; and their contrary vices, evil. Now the science of virtue and vice is moral
philosophy; and therefore the true doctrine of the laws of nature is the true moral
philosophy. But the writers of moral philosophy, though they acknowledge the same virtues
and vices; yet, not seeing wherein consisted their goodness, nor that they come to be
praised as the means of peaceable, sociable, and comfortable living, place them in a
mediocrity of passions: as if not the cause, but the degree of daring, made fortitude; or
not the cause, but the quantity of a gift, made liberality. |
|
[394] These dictates of
reason men used to call by the name of laws, but improperly: for they are but conclusions
or theorems concerning what conduceth to the conservation and defence of themselves;
whereas law, properly, is the word of him that by right hath command over others. But yet
if we consider the same theorems as delivered in the word of God that by right commandeth
all things, then are they properly called laws. |
|
[395] CHAPTER XVI OF
PERSONS, AUTHORS, AND THINGS PERSONATED |
|
[396] A PERSON is he whose
words or actions are considered, either as his own, or as representing the words or
actions of another man, or of any other thing to whom they are attributed, whether truly
or by fiction. |
| Note the concept of an artificial person |
[397] When they are
considered as his own, then is he called a natural person: and when they are considered as
representing the words and actions of another, then is he a feigned or artificial person. |
| The key to understanding this difficult
chapter is to ask in what way we can authorize someone to act as our representative, even
if they are an artificial person. Refer back to the introduction to picture this. |
[398] The word person is
Latin, instead whereof the Greeks have prosopon, which signifies the face, as persona in
Latin signifies the disguise, or outward appearance of a man, counterfeited on the stage;
and sometimes more particularly that part of it which disguiseth the face, as a mask or
vizard: and from the stage hath been translated to any representer of speech and action,
as well in tribunals as theatres. So that a person is the same that an actor is, both on
the stage and in common conversation; and to personate is to act or represent himself or
another; and he that acteth another is said to bear his person, or act in his name (in
which sense Cicero useth it where he says, Unus sustineo tres personas; mei, adversarii,
et judicis- I bear three persons; my own, my adversary's, and the judge's), and is called
in diverse occasions, diversely; as a representer, or representative, a lieutenant, a
vicar, an attorney, a deputy, a procurator, an actor, and the like. |
| Note definition of authority. |
[399] Of persons
artificial, some have their words and actions owned by those whom they represent. And then
the person is the actor, and he that owneth his words and actions is the author, in which
case the actor acteth by authority. For that which in speaking of goods and possessions is
called an owner, and in Latin dominus in Greek kurios; speaking of actions, is called
author. And as the right of possession is called dominion so the right of doing any action
is called authority. So that by authority is always understood a right of doing any act;
and done by authority, done by commission or license from him whose right it is. |
| Do the actions of the representative bind
the author? |
[400] From hence it
followeth that when the actor maketh a covenant by authority, he bindeth thereby the
author no less than if he had made it himself; and no less subjecteth him to all the
consequences of the same. And therefore all that hath been said formerly (Chapter XIV) of
the nature of covenants between man and man in their natural capacity is true also when
they are made by their actors, representers, or procurators, that have authority from
them, so far forth as is in their commission, but no further. |
|
[401] And therefore he that
maketh a covenant with the actor, or representer, not knowing the authority he hath, doth
it at his own peril. For no man is obliged by a covenant whereof he is not author, nor
consequently by a covenant made against or beside the authority he gave. |
|
[402] When the actor doth
anything against the law of nature by command of the author, if he be obliged by former
covenant to obey him, not he, but the author breaketh the law of nature: for though the
action be against the law of nature, yet it is not his; but, contrarily, to refuse to do
it is against the law of nature that forbiddeth breach of covenant. |
|
[403] And he that maketh a
covenant with the author, by mediation of the actor, not knowing what authority he hath,
but only takes his word; in case such authority be not made manifest unto him upon demand,
is no longer obliged: for the covenant made with the author is not valid without his
counter-assurance. But if he that so covenanteth knew beforehand he was to expect no other
assurance than the actor's word, then is the covenant valid, because the actor in this
case maketh himself the author. And therefore, as when the authority is evident, the
covenant obligeth the author, not the actor; so when the authority is feigned, it obligeth
the actor only, there being no author but himself. |
| Who is qualified to authorize a
representative? |
[404] There are few things
that are incapable of being represented by fiction. Inanimate things, as a church, a
hospital, a bridge, may be personated by a rector, master, or overseer. But things
inanimate cannot be authors, nor therefore give authority to their actors: yet the actors
may have authority to procure their maintenance, given them by those that are owners or
governors of those things. And therefore such things cannot be personated before there be
some state of civil government. |
|
[405] Likewise children,
fools, and madmen that have no use of reason may be personated by guardians, or curators,
but can be no authors during that time of any action done by them, longer than (when they
shall recover the use of reason) they shall judge the same reasonable. Yet during the
folly he that hath right of governing them may give authority to the guardian. But this
again has no place but in a state civil, because before such estate there is no dominion
of persons. |
|
[406] An idol, or mere
figment of the brain, may be personated, as were the gods of the heathen, which, by such
officers as the state appointed, were personated, and held possessions, and other goods,
and rights, which men from time to time dedicated and consecrated unto them. But idols
cannot be authors: for an idol is nothing. The authority proceeded from the state, and
therefore before introduction of civil government the gods of the heathen could not be
personated. |
|
[407] The true God may be
personated. As He was: first, Moses, who governed the Israelites, that were that were not
his, but God's people; not in his own name, with hoc dicit Moses, but in God's name, with
hoc dicit Dominus. Secondly, by the Son of Man, His own Son, our blessed Saviour Jesus
Christ, that came to reduce the Jews and induce all nations into the kingdom of his
Father; not as of himself, but as sent from his Father. And thirdly, by the Holy Ghost, or
Comforter, speaking and working in the Apostles; which Holy Ghost was a Comforter that
came not of himself, but was sent and proceeded from them both. |
| What happens to a group when they authorize
a representative? |
[408] A multitude of men
are made one person when they are by one man, or one person, represented; so that it be
done with the consent of every one of that multitude in particular. For it is the unity of
the representer, not the unity of the represented, that maketh the person one. And it is
the representer that beareth the person, and but one person: and unity cannot otherwise be
understood in multitude. |
|
[409] And because the
multitude naturally is not one, but many, they cannot be understood for one, but in any
authors, of everything their representative saith or doth in their name; every man giving
their common representer authority from himself in particular, and owning all the actions
the representer doth, in case they give him authority without stint: otherwise, when they
limit him in what and how far he shall represent them, none of them owneth more than they
gave him commission to act. |
| Why majority rule? |
[410] And if the
representative consist of many men, the voice of the greater number must be considered as
the voice of them all. For if the lesser number pronounce, for example, in the
affirmative, and the greater in the negative, there will be negatives more than enough to
destroy the affirmatives, and thereby the excess of negatives, standing uncontradicted,
are the only voice the representative hath. |
|
[411] And a representative
of even number, especially when the number is not great, whereby the contradictory voices
are oftentimes equal, is therefore oftentimes mute and incapable of action. Yet in some
cases contradictory voices equal in number may determine a question; as in condemning, or
absolving, equality of votes, even in that they condemn not, do absolve; but not on the
contrary condemn, in that they absolve not. For when a cause is heard, not to condemn is
to absolve; but on the contrary to say that not absolving is condemning is not true. The
like it is in deliberation of executing presently, or deferring till another time: for
when the voices are equal, the not decreeing execution is a decree of dilation. |
|
[412] Or if the number be
odd, as three, or more, men or assemblies, whereof every one has, by a negative voice,
authority to take away the effect of all the affirmative voices of the rest, this number
is no representative; by the diversity of opinions and interests of men, it becomes
oftentimes, and in cases of the greatest consequence, a mute person and unapt, as for many
things else, so for the government of a multitude, especially in time of war. |
|
[413] Of authors there be
two sorts. The first simply so called, which I have before defined to be him that owneth
the action of another simply. The second is he that owneth an action or covenant of
another conditionally; that is to say, he undertaketh to do it, if the other doth it not,
at or before a certain time. And these authors conditional are generally called sureties,
in Latin, fidejussores and sponsores; and particularly for debt, praedes and for
appearance before a judge or magistrate, vades. THE SECOND PART OF COMMONWEALTH |
|
[414] CHAPTER XVII OF THE
CAUSES, GENERATION, AND DEFINITION OF A COMMONWEALTH |
| What are the problems with the state of
nature? |
[415] THE final cause, end,
or design of men (who naturally love liberty, and dominion over others) in the
introduction of that restraint upon themselves, in which we see them live in
Commonwealths, is the foresight of their own preservation, and of a more contented life
thereby; that is to say, of getting themselves out from that miserable condition of war
which is necessarily consequent, as hath been shown, to the natural passions of men when
there is no visible power to keep them in awe, and tie them by fear of punishment to the
performance of their covenants, and observation of those laws of nature set down in the
fourteenth and fifteenth chapters. |
| What is wrong with human nature? |
[416] For the laws of
nature, as justice, equity, modesty, mercy, and, in sum, doing to others as we would be
done to, of themselves, without the terror of some power to cause them to be observed, are
contrary to our natural passions, that carry us to partiality, pride, revenge, and the
like. And covenants, without the sword, are but words and of no strength to secure a man
at all. Therefore, notwithstanding the laws of nature (which every one hath then kept,
when he has the will to keep them, when he can do it safely), if there be no power
erected, or not great enough for our security, every man will and may lawfully rely on his
own strength and art for caution against all other men. And in all places, where men have
lived by small families, to rob and spoil one another has been a trade, and so far from
being reputed against the law of nature that the greater spoils they gained, the greater
was their honour; and men observed no other laws therein but the laws of honour; that is,
to abstain from cruelty, leaving to men their lives and instruments of husbandry. And as
small families did then; so now do cities and kingdoms, which are but greater families
(for their own security), enlarge their dominions upon all pretences of danger, and fear
of invasion, or assistance that may be given to invaders; endeavour as much as they can to
subdue or weaken their neighbours by open force, and secret arts, for want of other
caution, justly; and are remembered for it in after ages with honour. |
|
[417] Nor is it the joining
together of a small number of men that gives them this security; because in small numbers,
small additions on the one side or the other make the advantage of strength so great as is
sufficient to carry the victory, and therefore gives encouragement to an invasion. The
multitude sufficient to confide in for our security is not determined by any certain
number, but by comparison with the enemy we fear; and is then sufficient when the odds of
the enemy is not of so visible and conspicuous moment to determine the event of war, as to
move him to attempt. |
|
[418] And be there never so
great a multitude; yet if their actions be directed according to their particular
judgements, and particular appetites, they can expect thereby no defence, nor protection,
neither against a common enemy, nor against the injuries of one another. For being
distracted in opinions concerning the best use and application of their strength, they do
not help, but hinder one another, and reduce their strength by mutual opposition to
nothing: whereby they are easily, not only subdued by a very few that agree together, but
also, when there is no common enemy, they make war upon each other for their particular
interests. For if we could suppose a great multitude of men to consent in the observation
of justice, and other laws of nature, without a common power to keep them all in awe, we
might as well suppose all mankind to do the same; and then there neither would be, nor
need to be, any civil government or Commonwealth at all, because there would be peace
without subjection. |
|
[419] Nor is it enough for
the security, which men desire should last all the time of their life, that they be
governed and directed by one judgement for a limited time; as in one battle, or one war.
For though they obtain a victory by their unanimous endeavour against a foreign enemy, yet
afterwards, when either they have no common enemy, or he that by one part is held for an
enemy is by another part held for a friend, they must needs by the difference of their
interests dissolve, and fall again into a war amongst themselves. |
| Why are animal societies not proof that we
can live in the state of nature? |
[420] It is true that
certain living creatures, as bees and ants, live sociably one with another (which are
therefore by Aristotle numbered amongst political creatures), and yet have no other
direction than their particular judgements and appetites; nor speech, whereby one of them
can signify to another what he thinks expedient for the common benefit: and therefore some
man may perhaps desire to know why mankind cannot do the same. To which I answer, |
|
[421] First, that men are
continually in competition for honour and dignity, which these creatures are not; and
consequently amongst men there ariseth on that ground, envy, and hatred, and finally war;
but amongst these not so. |
|
[422] Secondly, that
amongst these creatures the common good differeth not from the private; and being by
nature inclined to their private, they procure thereby the common benefit. But man, whose
joy consisteth in comparing himself with other men, can relish nothing but what is
eminent. |
|
[423] Thirdly, that these
creatures, having not, as man, the use of reason, do not see, nor think they see, any
fault in the administration of their common business: whereas amongst men there are very
many that think themselves wiser and abler to govern the public better than the rest, and
these strive to reform and innovate, one this way, another that way; and thereby bring it
into distraction and civil war. |
|
[424] Fourthly, that these
creatures, though they have some use of voice in making known to one another their desires
and other affections, yet they want that art of words by which some men can represent to
others that which is good in the likeness of evil; and evil, in the likeness of good; and
augment or diminish the apparent greatness of good and evil, discontenting men and
troubling their peace at their pleasure. |
|
[425] Fifthly, irrational
creatures cannot distinguish between injury and damage; and therefore as long as they be
at ease, they are not offended with their fellows: whereas man is then most troublesome
when he is most at ease; for then it is that he loves to show his wisdom, and control the
actions of them that govern the Commonwealth. |
|
[426] Lastly, the agreement
of these creatures is natural; that of men is by covenant only, which is artificial: and
therefore it is no wonder if there be somewhat else required, besides covenant, to make
their agreement constant and lasting; which is a common power to keep them in awe and to
direct their actions to the common benefit. |
| So what's the solution? |
[427] The only way to erect
such a common power, as may be able to defend them from the invasion of foreigners, and
the injuries of one another, and thereby to secure them in such sort as that by their own
industry and by the fruits of the earth they may nourish themselves and live contentedly,
is to confer all their power and strength upon one man, or upon one assembly of men, that
may reduce all their wills, by plurality of voices, unto one will: which is as much as to
say, to appoint one man, or assembly of men, to bear their person; and every one to own
and acknowledge himself to be author of whatsoever he that so beareth their person shall
act, or cause to be acted, in those things which concern the common peace and safety; and
therein to submit their wills, every one to his will, and their judgements to his
judgement. This is more than consent, or concord; it is a real unity of them all in one
and the same person, made by covenant of every man with every man, in such manner as if
every man should say to every man: I authorise and give up my right of governing myself to
this man, or to this assembly of men, on this condition; that thou give up, thy right to
him, and authorise all his actions in like manner. This done, the multitude so united in
one person is called a COMMONWEALTH; in Latin, CIVITAS. This is the generation of that
great LEVIATHAN, or rather, to speak more reverently, of that mortal god to which we owe,
under the immortal God, our peace and defence. For by this authority, given him by every
particular man in the Commonwealth, he hath the use of so much power and strength
conferred on him that, by terror thereof, he is enabled to form the wills of them all, to
peace at home, and mutual aid against their enemies abroad. And in him consisteth the
essence of the Commonwealth; which, to define it, is: one person, of whose acts a great
multitude, by mutual covenants one with another, have made themselves every one the
author, to the end he may use the strength and means of them all as he shall think
expedient for their peace and common defence. |
| What is the sovereign? |
[428] And he that carryeth
this person is called sovereign, and said to have sovereign power; and every one besides,
his subject. |
|
[429] The attaining to this
sovereign power is by two ways. One, by natural force: as when a man maketh his children
to submit themselves, and their children, to his government, as being able to destroy them
if they refuse; or by war subdueth his enemies to his will, giving them their lives on
that condition. The other, is when men agree amongst themselves to submit to some man, or
assembly of men, voluntarily, on confidence to be protected by him against all others.
This latter may be called a political Commonwealth, or Commonwealth by Institution; and
the former, a Commonwealth by acquisition. And first, I shall speak of a Commonwealth by
institution. |
|
[430] CHAPTER XVIII OF THE
RIGHTS OF SOVEREIGNS BY INSTITUTION |
|
[431] A COMMONWEALTH is
said to be instituted when a multitude of men do agree, and covenant, every one with every
one, that to whatsoever man, or assembly of men, shall be given by the major part the
right to present the person of them all, that is to say, to be their representative; every
one, as well he that voted for it as he that voted against it, shall authorize all the
actions and judgements of that man, or assembly of men, in the same manner as if they were
his own, to the end to live peaceably amongst themselves, and be protected against other
men. |
|
[432] From this institution
of a Commonwealth are derived all the rights and faculties of him, or them, on whom the
sovereign power is conferred by the consent of the people assembled. |
| What are the rights of the sovereign
presented in this chapter? |
[433] First, because they
covenant, it is to be understood they are not obliged by former covenant to anything
repugnant hereunto. And consequently they that have already instituted a Commonwealth,
being thereby bound by covenant to own the actions and judgements of one, cannot lawfully
make a new covenant amongst themselves to be obedient to any other, in anything
whatsoever, without his permission. And therefore, they that are subjects to a monarch
cannot without his leave cast off monarchy and return to the confusion of a disunited
multitude; nor transfer their person from him that beareth it to another man, other
assembly of men: for they are bound, every man to every man, to own and be reputed author
of all that already is their sovereign shall do and judge fit to be done; so that any one
man dissenting, all the rest should break their covenant made to that man, which is
injustice: and they have also every man given the sovereignty to him that beareth their
person; and therefore if they depose him, they take from him that which is his own, and so
again it is injustice. Besides, if he that attempteth to depose his sovereign be killed or
punished by him for such attempt, he is author of his own punishment, as being, by the
institution, author of all his sovereign shall do; and because it is injustice for a man
to do anything for which he may be punished by his own authority, he is also upon that
title unjust. And whereas some men have pretended for their disobedience to their
sovereign a new covenant, made, not with men but with God, this also is unjust: for there
is no covenant with God but by mediation of somebody that representeth God's person, which
none doth but God's lieutenant who hath the sovereignty under God. But this pretence of
covenant with God is so evident a lie, even in the pretenders' own consciences, that it is
not only an act of an unjust, but also of a vile and unmanly disposition. |
|
[434] Secondly, because the
right of bearing the person of them all is given to him they make sovereign, by covenant
only of one to another, and not of him to any of them, there can happen no breach of
covenant on the part of the sovereign; and consequently none of his subjects, by any
pretence of forfeiture, can be freed from his subjection. That he which is made sovereign
maketh no covenant with his subjects before hand is manifest; because either he must make
it with the whole multitude, as one party to the covenant, or he must make a several
covenant with every man. With the whole, as one party, it is impossible, because as they
are not one person: and if he make so many several covenants as there be men, those
covenants after he hath the sovereignty are void; because what act soever can be pretended
by any one of them for breach thereof is the act both of himself, and of all the rest,
because done in the person, and by the right of every one of them in particular. Besides,
if any one or more of them pretend a breach of the covenant made by the sovereign at his
institution, and others or one other of his subjects, or himself alone, pretend there was
no such breach, there is in this case no judge to decide the controversy: it returns
therefore to the sword again; and every man recovereth the right of protecting himself by
his own strength, contrary to the design they had in the institution. It is therefore in
vain to grant sovereignty by way of precedent covenant. The opinion that any monarch
receiveth his power by covenant, that is to say, on condition, proceedeth from want of
understanding this easy truth: that covenants being but words, and breath, have no force
to oblige, contain, constrain, or protect any man, but what it has from the public sword;
that is, from the untied hands of that man, or assembly of men, that hath the sovereignty,
and whose actions are avouched by them all, and performed by the strength of them all, in
him united. But when an assembly of men is made sovereign, then no man imagineth any such
covenant to have passed in the institution: for no man is so dull as to say, for example,
the people of Rome made a covenant with the Romans to hold the sovereignty on such or such
conditions; which not performed, the Romans might lawfully depose the Roman people. That
men see not the reason to be alike in a monarchy and in a popular government proceedeth
from the ambition of some that are kinder to the government of an assembly, whereof they
may hope to participate, than of monarchy, which they despair to enjoy. |
|
[435] Thirdly, because the
major part hath by consenting voices declared a sovereign, he that dissented must now
consent with the rest; that is, be contented to avow all the actions he shall do, or else
justly be destroyed by the rest. For if he voluntarily entered into the congregation of
them that were assembled, he sufficiently declared thereby his will, and therefore tacitly
covenanted, to stand to what the major part should ordain: and therefore if he refuse to
stand thereto, or make protestation against any of their decrees, he does contrary to his
covenant, and therefore unjustly. And whether he be of the congregation or not, and
whether his consent be asked or not, he must either submit to their decrees or be left in
the condition of war he was in before; wherein he might without injustice be destroyed by
any man whatsoever. |
|
[436] Fourthly, because
every subject is by this institution author of all the actions and judgements of the
sovereign instituted, it follows that whatsoever he doth, can be no injury to any of his
subjects; nor ought he to be by any of them accused of injustice. For he that doth
anything by authority from another doth therein no injury to him by whose authority he
acteth: but by this institution of a Commonwealth every particular man is author of all
the sovereign doth; and consequently he that complaineth of injury from his sovereign
complaineth of that whereof he himself is author, and therefore ought not to accuse any
man but himself; no, nor himself of injury, because to do injury to oneself is impossible.
It is true that they that have sovereign power may commit iniquity, but not injustice or
injury in the proper signification. |
|
[437] Fifthly, and
consequently to that which was said last, no man that hath sovereign power can justly be
put to death, or otherwise in any manner by his subjects punished. For seeing every
subject is author of the actions of his sovereign, he punisheth another for the actions
committed by himself. |
|
[438] And because the end
of this institution is the peace and defence of them all, and whosoever has right to the
end has right to the means, it belonged of right to whatsoever man or assembly that hath
the sovereignty to be judge both of the means of peace and defence, and also of the
hindrances and disturbances of the same; and to do whatsoever he shall think necessary to
be done, both beforehand, for the preserving of peace and security, by prevention of
discord at home, and hostility from abroad; and when peace and security are lost, for the
recovery of the same. And therefore, |
|
[439] Sixthly, it is
annexed to the sovereignty to be judge of what opinions and doctrines are averse, and what
conducing to peace; and consequently, on what occasions, how far, and what men are to be
trusted withal in speaking to multitudes of people; and who shall examine the doctrines of
all books before they be published. For the actions of men proceed from their opinions,
and in the well governing of opinions consisteth the well governing of men's actions in
order to their peace and concord. And though in matter of doctrine nothing to be regarded
but the truth, yet this is not repugnant to regulating of the same by peace. For doctrine
repugnant to peace can no more be true, than peace and concord can be against the law of
nature. It is true that in a Commonwealth, where by the negligence or unskillfulness of
governors and teachers false doctrines are by time generally received, the contrary truths
may be generally offensive: yet the most sudden and rough bustling in of a new truth that
can be does never break the peace, but only sometimes awake the war. For those men that
are so remissly governed that they dare take up arms to defend or introduce an opinion are
still in war; and their condition, not peace, but only a cessation of arms for fear of one
another; and they live, as it were, in the procincts of battle continually. It belonged
therefore to him that hath the sovereign power to be judge, or constitute all judges of
opinions and doctrines, as a thing necessary to peace; thereby to prevent discord and
civil war. |
|
[440] Seventhly, is annexed
to the sovereignty the whole power of prescribing the rules whereby every man may know
what goods he may enjoy, and what actions he may do, without being molested by any of his
fellow subjects: and this is it men call propriety. For before constitution of sovereign
power, as hath already been shown, all men had right to all things, which necessarily
causeth war: and therefore this propriety, being necessary to peace, and depending on
sovereign power, is the act of that power, in order to the public peace. These rules of
propriety (or meum and tuum) and of good, evil, lawful, and unlawful in the actions of
subjects are the civil laws; that is to say, the laws of each Commonwealth in particular;
though the name of civil law be now restrained to the ancient civil laws of the city of
Rome; which being the head of a great part of the world, her laws at that time were in
these parts the civil law. |
|
[441] Eighthly, is annexed
to the sovereignty the right of judicature; that is to say, of hearing and deciding all
controversies which may arise concerning law, either civil or natural, or concerning fact.
For without the decision of controversies, there is no protection of one subject against
the injuries of another; the laws concerning meum and tuum are in vain, and to every man
remaineth, from the natural and necessary appetite of his own conservation, the right of
protecting himself by his private strength, which is the condition of war, and contrary to
the end for which every Commonwealth is instituted. |
|
[442] Ninthly, is annexed
to the sovereignty the right of making war and peace with other nations and Commonwealths;
that is to say, of judging when it is for the public good, and how great forces are to be
assembled, armed, and paid for that end, and to levy money upon the subjects to defray the
expenses thereof. For the power by which the people are to be defended consisteth in their
armies, and the strength of an army in the union of their strength under one command;
which command the sovereign instituted, therefore hath, because the command of the
militia, without other institution, maketh him that hath it sovereign. And therefore,
whosoever is made general of an army, he that hath the sovereign power is always
generalissimo. |
|
[443] Tenthly, is annexed
to the sovereignty the choosing of all counsellors, ministers, magistrates, and officers,
both in peace and war. For seeing the sovereign is charged with the end, which is the
common peace and defence, he is understood to have power to use such means as he shall
think most fit for his discharge. |
|
[444] Eleventhly, to the
sovereign is committed the power of rewarding with riches or honour; and of punishing with
corporal or pecuniary punishment, or with ignominy, every subject according to the law he
hath formerly made; or if there be no law made, according as he shall judge most to
conduce to the encouraging of men to serve the Commonwealth, or deterring of them from
doing disservice to the same. |
|
[445] Lastly, considering
what values men are naturally apt to set upon themselves, what respect they look for from
others, and how little they value other men; from whence continually arise amongst them,
emulation, quarrels, factions, and at last war, to the destroying of one another, and
diminution of their strength against a common enemy; it is necessary that there be laws of
honour, and a public rate of the worth of such men as have deserved or are able to deserve
well of the Commonwealth, and that there be force in the hands of some or other to put
those laws in execution. But it hath already been shown that not only the whole militia,
or forces of the Commonwealth, but also the judicature of all controversies, is annexed to
the sovereignty. To the sovereign therefore it belonged also to give titles of honour, and
to appoint what order of place and dignity each man shall hold, and what signs of respect
in public or private meetings they shall give to one another. |
| Why does the sovereign require the above
powers? Note how many times Hobbes offers civil war as the alternative throughout the
rest of his essay. |
[446] These are the rights
which make the essence of sovereignty, and which are the marks whereby a man may discern
in what man, or assembly of men, the sovereign power is placed and resideth. For these are
incommunicable and inseparable. The power to coin money, to dispose of the estate and
persons of infant heirs, to have pre-emption in markets, and all other statute
prerogatives may be transferred by the sovereign, and yet the power to protect his
subjects be retained. But if he transfer the militia, he retains the judicature in vain,
for want of execution of the laws; or if he grant away the power of raising money, the
militia is in vain; or if he give away the government of doctrines, men will be frighted
into rebellion with the fear of spirits. And so if we consider any one of the said rights,
we shall presently see that the holding of all the rest will produce no effect in the
conservation of peace and justice, the end for which all Commonwealths are instituted. And
this division is it whereof it is said, a kingdom divided in itself cannot stand: for
unless this division precede, division into opposite armies can never happen. If there had
not first been an opinion received of the greatest part of England that these powers were
divided between the King and the Lords and the House of Commons, the people had never been
divided and fallen into this Civil War; first between those that disagreed in politics,
and after between the dissenters about the liberty of religion, which have so instructed
men in this point of sovereign right that there be few now in England that do not see that
these rights are inseparable, and will be so generally acknowledged at the next return of
peace; and so continue, till their miseries are forgotten, and no longer, except the
vulgar be better taught than they have hitherto been. |
|
[447] And because they are
essential and inseparable rights, it follows necessarily that in whatsoever words any of
them seem to be granted away, yet if the sovereign power itself be not in direct terms
renounced and the name of sovereign no more given by the grantees to him that grants them,
the grant is void: for when he has granted all he can, if we grant back the sovereignty,
all is restored, as inseparably annexed thereunto. |
|
[448] This great authority
being indivisible, and inseparably annexed to the sovereignty, there is little ground for
the opinion of them that say of sovereign kings, though they be singulis majores, of
greater power than every one of their subjects, yet they be universis minores, of less
power than them all together. For if by all together, they mean not the collective body as
one person, then all together and every one signify the same; and the speech is absurd.
But if by all together, they understand them as one person (which person the sovereign
bears), then the power of all together is the same with the sovereign's power; and so
again the speech is absurd: which absurdity they see well enough when the sovereignty is
in an assembly of the people; but in a monarch they see it not; and yet the power of
sovereignty is the same in whomsoever it be placed. |
|
[449] And as the power, so
also the honour of the sovereign, ought to be greater than that of any or all the
subjects. For in the sovereignty is the fountain of honour. The dignities of lord, earl,
duke, and prince are his creatures. As in the presence of the master, the servants are
equal, and without any honour at all; so are the subjects, in the presence of the
sovereign. And though they shine some more, some less, when they are out of his sight; yet
in his presence, they shine no more than the stars in presence of the sun. |
|
[450] But a man may here
object that the condition of subjects is very miserable, as being obnoxious to the lusts
and other irregular passions of him or them that have so unlimited a power in their hands.
And commonly they that live under a monarch think it the fault of monarchy; and they that
live under the government of democracy, or other sovereign assembly, attribute all the
inconvenience to that form of Commonwealth; whereas the power in all forms, if they be
perfect enough to protect them, is the same: not considering that the estate of man can
never be without some incommodity or other; and that the greatest that in any form of
government can possibly happen to the people in general is scarce sensible, in respect of
the miseries and horrible calamities that accompany a civil war, or that dissolute
condition of masterless men without subjection to laws and a coercive power to tie their
hands from rapine and revenge: nor considering that the greatest pressure of sovereign
governors proceedeth, not from any delight or profit they can expect in the damage
weakening of their subjects, in whose vigour consisteth their own strength and glory, but
in the restiveness of themselves that, unwillingly contributing to their own defence, make
it necessary for their governors to draw from them what they can in time of peace that
they may have means on any emergent occasion, or sudden need, to resist or take advantage
on their enemies. For all men are by nature provided of notable multiplying glasses (that
is their passions and self-love) through which every little payment appeareth a great
grievance, but are destitute of those prospective glasses (namely moral and civil science)
to see afar off the miseries that hang over them and cannot without such payments be
avoided. |
|
[451] CHAPTER XIX OF THE
SEVERAL KINDS OF COMMONWEALTH BY INSTITUTION, AND OF SUCCESSION TO THE SOVEREIGN POWER |
| What are the different kinds of government
and which is best? |
[452] THE difference of
Commonwealths consisteth in the difference of the sovereign, or the person representative
of all and every one of the multitude. And because the sovereignty is either in one man,
or in an assembly of more than one; and into that assembly either every man hath right to
enter, or not every one, but certain men distinguished from the rest; it is manifest there
can be but three kinds of Commonwealth. For the representative must needs be one man, or
more; and if more, then it is the assembly of all, or but of a part. When the
representative is one man, then is the Commonwealth a monarchy; when an assembly of all
that will come together, then it is a democracy, or popular Commonwealth; when an assembly
of a part only, then it is called an aristocracy. Other kind of Commonwealth there can be
none: for either one, or more, or all, must have the sovereign power (which I have shown
to be indivisible) entire. |
|
[453] There be other names
of government in the histories and books of policy; as tyranny and oligarchy; but they are
not the names of other forms of government, but of the same forms misliked. For they that
are discontented under monarchy call it tyranny; and they that are displeased with
aristocracy call it oligarchy: so also, they which find themselves grieved under a
democracy call it anarchy, which signifies want of government; and yet I think no man
believes that want of government is any new kind of government: nor by the same reason
ought they to believe that the government is of one kind when they like it, and another
when they mislike it or are oppressed by the governors. |
| How does the type of government relate to
the sovereign power? |
[454] It is manifest that
men who are in absolute liberty may, if they please, give authority to one man to
represent them every one, as well as give such authority to any assembly of men
whatsoever; and consequently may subject themselves, if they think good, to a monarch as
absolutely as to other representative. Therefore, where there is already erected a
sovereign power, there can be no other representative of the same people, but only to
certain particular ends, by the sovereign limited. For that were to erect two sovereigns;
and every man to have his person represented by two actors that, by opposing one another,
must needs divide that power, which (if men will live in peace) is indivisible; and
thereby reduce the multitude into the condition of war, contrary to the end for which all
sovereignty is instituted. And therefore as it is absurd to think that a sovereign
assembly, inviting the people of their dominion to send up their deputies with power to
make known their advice or desires should therefore hold such deputies, rather than
themselves, for the absolute representative of the people; so it is absurd also to think
the same in a monarchy. And I know not how this so manifest a truth should of late be so
little observed: that in a monarchy he that had the sovereignty from a descent of six
hundred years was alone called sovereign, had the title of Majesty from every one of his
subjects, and was unquestionably taken by them for their king, was notwithstanding never
considered as their representative; that name without contradiction passing for the title
of those men which at his command were sent up by the people to carry their petitions and
give him, if he permitted it, their advice. Which may serve as an admonition for those
that are the true and absolute representative of a people, to instruct men in the nature
of that office, and to take heed how they admit of any other general representation upon
any occasion whatsoever, if they mean to discharge the trust committed to them. |
| What are the advantages of monarchy? |
[455] The difference
between these three kinds of Commonwealth consisteth, not in the difference of power, but
in the difference of convenience or aptitude to produce the peace and security of the
people; for which end they were instituted. And to compare monarchy with the other two, we
may observe: first, that whosoever beareth the person of the people, or is one of that
assembly that bears it, beareth also his own natural person. And though he be careful in
his politic person to procure the common interest, yet he is more, or no less, careful to
procure the private good of himself, his family, kindred and friends; and for the most
part, if the public interest chance to cross the private, he prefers the private: for the
passions of men are commonly more potent than their reason. From whence it follows that
where the public and private interest are most closely united, there is the public most
advanced. Now in monarchy the private interest is the same with the public. The riches,
power, and honour of a monarch arise only from the riches, strength, and reputation of his
subjects. For no king can be rich, nor glorious, nor secure, whose subjects are either
poor, or contemptible, or too weak through want, or dissension, to maintain a war against
their enemies; whereas in a democracy, or aristocracy, the public prosperity confers not
so much to the private fortune of one that is corrupt, or ambitious, as doth many times a
perfidious advice, a treacherous action, or a civil war. |
|
[456] Secondly, that a
monarch receiveth counsel of whom, when, and where he pleaseth; and consequently may hear
the opinion of men versed in the matter about which he deliberates, of what rank or
quality soever, and as long before the time of action and with as much secrecy as he will.
But when a sovereign assembly has need of counsel, none are admitted but such as have a
right thereto from the beginning; which for the most part are of those who have been
versed more in the acquisition of wealth than of knowledge, and are to give their advice
in long discourses which may, and do commonly, excite men to action, but not govern them
in it. For the understanding is by the flame of the passions never enlightened, but
dazzled: nor is there any place or time wherein an assembly can receive counsel secrecy,
because of their own multitude. |
|
[457] Thirdly, that the
resolutions of a monarch are subject to no other inconstancy than that of human nature;
but in assemblies, besides that of nature, there ariseth an inconstancy from the number.
For the absence of a few that would have the resolution, once taken, continue firm (which
may happen by security, negligence, or private impediments), or the diligent appearance of
a few of the contrary opinion, undoes today all that was concluded yesterday. |
|
[458] Fourthly, that a
monarch cannot disagree with himself, out of envy or interest; but an assembly may; and
that to such a height as may produce a civil war. |
|
[459] Fifthly, that in
monarchy there is this inconvenience; that any subject, by the power of one man, for the
enriching of a favourite or flatterer, may be deprived of all he possesseth; which I
confess is a great an inevitable inconvenience. But the same may as well happen where the
sovereign power is in an assembly: for their power is the same; and they are as subject to
evil counsel, and to be seduced by orators, as a monarch by flatterers; and becoming one
another's flatterers, serve one another's covetousness and ambition by turns. And whereas
the favourites of monarchs are few, and they have none else to advance but their own
kindred; the favourites of an assembly are many, and the kindred much more numerous than
of any monarch. Besides, there is no favourite of a monarch which cannot as well succour
his friends as hurt his enemies: but orators, that is to say, favourites of sovereign
assemblies, though they have great power to hurt, have little to save. For to accuse
requires less eloquence (such is man's nature) than to excuse; and condemnation, than
absolution, more resembles justice. |
|
[460] Sixthly, that it is
an inconvenience in monarchy that the sovereignty may descend upon an infant, or one that
cannot discern between good and evil: and consisteth in this, that the use of his power
must be in the hand of another man, or of some assembly of men, which are to govern by his
right and in his name as curators and protectors of his person and authority. But to say
there is inconvenience in putting the use of the sovereign power into the hand of a man,
or an assembly of men, is to say that all government is more inconvenient than confusion
and civil war. And therefore all the danger that can be pretended must arise from the
contention of those that, for an office of so great honour and profit, may become
competitors. To make it appear that this inconvenience proceedeth not from that form of
government we call monarchy, we are to consider that the precedent monarch hath appointed
who shall have the tuition of his infant successor, either expressly by testament, or
tacitly by not controlling the custom in that case received: and then such inconvenience,
if it happen, is to be attributed, not to the monarchy, but to the ambition and injustice
of the subjects, which in all kinds of government, where the people are not well
instructed in their duty and the rights of sovereignty, is the same. Or else the precedent
monarch hath not at all taken order for such tuition; and then the law of nature hath
provided this sufficient rule, that the tuition shall be in him that hath by nature most
interest in the preservation of the authority of the infant, and to whom least benefit can
accrue by his death or diminution. For seeing every man by nature seeketh his own benefit
and promotion, to put an infant into the power of those that can promote themselves by his
destruction or damage is not tuition, but treachery. So that sufficient provision being
taken against all just quarrel about the government under a child, if any contention arise
to the disturbance of the public peace, it is not to be attributed to the form of
monarchy, but to the ambition of subjects and ignorance of their duty. On the other side,
there is no great Commonwealth, the sovereignty whereof is in a great assembly, which is
not, as to consultations of peace, and war, and making of laws, in the same condition as
if the government were in a child. For as a child wants the judgement to dissent from
counsel given him, and is thereby necessitated to take the advice of them, or him, to whom
he is committed; so an assembly wanteth the liberty to dissent from the counsel of the
major part, be it good or bad. And as a child has need of a tutor, or protector, to
preserve his person and authority; so also in great Commonwealths the sovereign assembly,
in all great dangers and troubles, have need of custodes libertatis; that is, of
dictators, or protectors of their authority; which are as much as temporary monarchs to
whom for a time they may commit the entire exercise of their power; and have, at the end
of that time, been oftener deprived thereof than infant kings by their protectors,
regents, or any other tutors. |
|
[461] Though the kinds of
sovereignty be, as I have now shown, but three; that is to say, monarchy, where one man
has it; or democracy, where the general assembly of subjects hath it; or aristocracy,
where it is in an assembly of certain persons nominated, or otherwise distinguished from
the rest: yet he that shall consider the particular Commonwealths that have been and are
in the world will not perhaps easily reduce them to three, and may thereby be inclined to
think there be other forms arising from these mingled together. As for example, elective
kingdoms; where kings have the sovereign power put into their hands for a time; or
kingdoms wherein the king hath a power limited: which governments are nevertheless by most
writers called monarchy. Likewise if a popular or aristocratical Commonwealth subdue an
enemy's country, and govern the same by a president, procurator, or other magistrate, this
may seem perhaps, at first sight, to be a democratical or aristocratical government. But
it is not so. For elective kings are not sovereigns, but ministers of the sovereign; nor
limited kings sovereigns, but ministers of them that have the sovereign power; nor are
those provinces which are in subjection to a democracy or aristocracy of another
Commonwealth democratically or aristocratically governed, but monarchically. |
|
[462] And first, concerning
an elective king, whose power is limited to his life, as it is in many places of
Christendom at this day; or to certain years or months, as the dictator's power amongst
the Romans; if he have right to appoint his successor, he is no more elective but
hereditary. But if he have no power to elect his successor, then there is some other man,
or assembly known, which after his decease may elect a new; or else the Commonwealth
dieth, and dissolveth with him, and returneth to the condition of war. If it be known who
have the power to give the sovereignty after his death, it is known also that the
sovereignty was in them before: for none have right to give that which they have not right
to possess, and keep to themselves, if they think good. But if there be none that can give
the sovereignty after the decease of him that was first elected, then has he power, nay he
is obliged by the law of nature, to provide, by establishing his successor, to keep to
those that had trusted him with the government from relapsing into the miserable condition
of civil war. And consequently he was, when elected, a sovereign absolute. |
|
[463] Secondly, that king
whose power is limited is not superior to him, or them, that have the power to limit it;
and he that is not superior is not supreme; that is to say, not sovereign. The sovereignty
therefore was always in that assembly which had the right to limit him, and by consequence
the government not monarchy, but either democracy or aristocracy; as of old time in
Sparta, where the kings had a privilege to lead their armies, but the sovereignty was in
the Ephori. |
|
[464] Thirdly, whereas
heretofore the Roman people governed the land of Judea, for example, by a president; yet
was not Judea therefore a democracy, because they were not governed by any assembly into
which any of them had right to enter; nor by an aristocracy, because they were not
governed by any assembly into which any man could enter by their election: but they were
governed by one person, which though as to the people of Rome was an assembly of the
people, or democracy; yet as to the people of Judea, which had no right at all of
participating in the government, was a monarch. For though where the people are governed
by an assembly, chosen by themselves out of their own number, the government is called a
democracy, or aristocracy; yet when they are governed by an assembly not of their own
choosing, it is a monarchy; not of one man over another man, but of one people over
another people. |
| What determines the life-span of the
sovereign power? |
[465] Of all these forms of
government, the matter being mortal, so that not only monarchs, but also whole assemblies
die, it is necessary for the conservation of the peace of men that as there was order
taken for an artificial man, so there be order also taken for an artificial eternity of
life; without which men that are governed by an assembly should return into the condition
of war in every age; and they that are governed by one man, as soon as their governor
dieth. This artificial eternity is that which men call the right of succession. |
|
[466] There is no perfect
form of government, where the disposing of the succession is not in the present sovereign.
For if it be in any other particular man, or private assembly, it is in a person subject,
and may be assumed by the sovereign at his pleasure; and consequently the right is in
himself. And if it be in no particular man, but left to a new choice; then is the
Commonwealth dissolved, and the right is in him that can get it, contrary to the intention
of them that did institute the Commonwealth for their perpetual, and not temporary,
security. |
|
[467] In a democracy, the
whole assembly cannot fail unless the multitude that are to be governed fail. And
therefore questions of the right of succession have in that form of government no place at
all. |
|
[468] In an aristocracy,
when any of the assembly dieth, the election of another into his room belonged to the
assembly, as the sovereign, to whom belonged the choosing of all counsellors and officers.
For that which the representative doth, as actor, every one of the subjects doth, as
author. And though the sovereign assembly may give power to others to elect new men, for
supply of their court, yet it is still by their authority that the election is made; and
by the same it may, when the public shall require it, be recalled. |
| Why is this such a problem for monarchy? |
[469] The greatest
difficulty about the right of succession is in monarchy: and the difficulty ariseth from
this, that at first sight, it is not manifest who is to appoint the successor; nor many
times who it is whom he hath appointed. For in both these cases, there is required a more
exact ratiocination than every man is accustomed to use. As to the question who shall
appoint the successor of a monarch that hath the sovereign authority; that is to say, who
shall determine of the right of inheritance (for elective kings and princes have not the
sovereign power in propriety, but in use only), we are to consider that either he that is
in possession has right to dispose of the succession, or else that right is again in the
dissolved multitude. For the death of him that hath the sovereign power in property leaves
the multitude without any sovereign at all; that is, without any representative in whom
they should be united, and be capable of doing any one action at all: and therefore they
are incapable of election of any new monarch, every man having equal right to submit
himself to such as he thinks best able to protect him; or, if he can, protect himself by
his own sword; which is a return to confusion and to the condition of a war of every man
against every man, contrary to the end for which monarchy had its first institution.
Therefore it is manifest that by the institution of monarchy, the disposing of the
successor is always left to the judgement and will of the present possessor. |
|
[470] And for the question
which may arise sometimes, who it is that the monarch in possession hath designed to the
succession and inheritance of his power, it is determined by his express words and
testament; or by other tacit signs sufficient. |
|
[471] By express words, or
testament, when it is declared by him in his lifetime, viva voce, or by writing; as the
first emperors of Rome declared who should be their heirs. For the word heir does not of
itself imply the children or nearest kindred of a man; but whomsoever a man shall any way
declare he would have to succeed him in his estate. If therefore a monarch declare
expressly that such a man shall be his heir, either by word or writing, then is that man
immediately after the decease of his predecessor invested in the right of being monarch. |
|
[472] But where testament
and express words are wanting, other natural signs of the will are to be followed: whereof
the one is custom. And therefore where the custom is that the next of kindred absolutely
succeedeth, there also the next of kindred hath right to the succession; for that, if the
will of him that was in possession had been otherwise, he might easily have declared the
same in his lifetime. And likewise where the custom is that the next of the male kindred
succeedeth, there also the right of succession is in the next of the kindred male, for the
same reason. And so it is if the custom were to advance the female. For whatsoever custom
a man may by a word control, and does not, it is a natural sign he would have that custom
stand. |
|
[473] But where neither
custom nor testament hath preceded, there it is to he understood; first, that a monarch's
will is that the government remain monarchical, because he hath approved that government
in himself. Secondly, that a child of his own, male or female, be preferred before any
other, because men are presumed to be more inclined by nature to advance their own
children than the children of other men; and of their own, rather a male than a female,
because men are naturally fitter than women for actions of labour and danger. Thirdly,
where his own issue faileth, rather a brother than a stranger, and so still the nearer in
blood rather than the more remote, because it is always presumed that the nearer of kin is
the nearer in affection; and it is evident that a man receives always, by reflection, the
most honour from the greatness of his nearest kindred. |
|
[474] But if it be lawful
for a monarch to dispose of the succession by words of contract, or testament, men may
perhaps object a great inconvenience: for he may sell or give his right of governing to a
stranger; which, because strangers (that is, men not used to live under the same
government, nor speaking the same language) do commonly undervalue one another, may turn
to the oppression of his subjects, which is indeed a great inconvenience: but it
proceedeth not necessarily from the subjection to a stranger's government, but from the
unskillfulness of the governors, ignorant of the true rules of politics. And therefore the
Romans, when they had subdued many nations, to make their government digestible were wont
to take away that grievance as much as they thought necessary by giving sometimes to whole
nations, and sometimes to principal men of every nation they conquered, not only the
privileges, but also the name of Romans; and took many of them into the Senate, and
offices of charge, even in the Roman city. And this was it our most wise king, King James,
aimed at in endeavouring the union of his two realms of England and Scotland. Which, if he
could have obtained, had in all likelihood prevented the civil wars which both those
kingdoms, at this present, miserable. It is not therefore any injury to the people for a
monarch to dispose of the succession by will; though by the fault of many princes, it hath
been sometimes found inconvenient. Of the lawfulness of it, this also is an argument; that
whatsoever inconvenience can arrive by giving a kingdom to a stranger, may arrive also by
so marrying with strangers, as the right of succession may descend upon them: yet this by
all men is accounted lawful. |
|
[475] CHAPTER XX OF
DOMINION PATERNAL AND DESPOTICAL |
| Hobbes now turns his attention from
legitimately creating sovereign power to power through force. |
[476] A COMMONWEALTH by
acquisition is that where the sovereign power is acquired by force; and it is acquired by
force when men singly, or many together by plurality of voices, for fear of death, or
bonds, do authorise all the actions of that man, or assembly, that hath their lives and
liberty in his power. |
|
[477] And this kind of
dominion, or sovereignty, differeth from sovereignty by institution only in this, that men
who choose their sovereign do it for fear of one another, and not of him whom they
institute: but in this case, they subject themselves to him they are afraid of. In both
cases they do it for fear: which is to be noted by them that hold all such covenants, as
proceed from fear of death or violence, void: which, if it were true, no man in any kind
of Commonwealth could be obliged to obedience. It is true that in a Commonwealth once
instituted, or acquired, promises proceeding from fear of death or violence are no
covenants, nor obliging, when the thing promised is contrary to the laws; but the reason
is not because it was made upon fear, but because he that promiseth hath no right in the
thing promised. Also, when he may lawfully perform, and doth not, it is not the invalidity
of the covenant that absolveth him, but the sentence of the sovereign. Otherwise,
whensoever a man lawfully promiseth, he unlawfully breaketh: but when the sovereign, who
is the actor, acquitteth him, then he is acquitted by him that extorted the promise, as by
the author of such absolution. |
| But does it matter? |
[478] But the rights and
consequences of sovereignty are the same in both. His power cannot, without his consent,
be transferred to another: he cannot forfeit it: he cannot be accused by any of his
subjects of injury: he cannot be punished by them: he is judge of what is necessary for
peace, and judge of doctrines: he is sole legislator, and supreme judge of controversies,
and of the times and occasions of war and peace: to him it belonged to choose magistrates,
counsellors, commanders, and all other officers and ministers; and to determine of rewards
and punishments, honour and order. The reasons whereof are the same which are alleged in
the precedent chapter for the same rights and consequences of sovereignty by institution. |
| Paternal dominion comes through generation.
Why is it a bad example for the dominion of a sovereign? |
[479] Dominion is acquired
two ways: by generation and by conquest. The right of dominion by generation is that which
the parent hath over his children, and is called paternal. And is not so derived from the
generation, as if therefore the parent had dominion over his child because he begat him,
but from the child's consent, either express or by other sufficient arguments declared.
For as to the generation, God hath ordained to man a helper, and there be always two that
are equally parents: the dominion therefore over the child should belong equally to both,
and he be equally subject to both, which is impossible; for no man can obey two masters.
And whereas some have attributed the dominion to the man only, as being of the more
excellent sex, they misreckon in it. For there is not always that difference of strength
or prudence between the man and the woman as that the right can be determined without war.
In Commonwealths this controversy is decided by the civil law: and for the most part, but
not always, the sentence is in favour of the father, because for the most part
Commonwealths have been erected by the fathers, not by the mothers of families. But the
question lieth now in the state of mere nature where there are supposed no laws of
matrimony, no laws for the education of children, but the law of nature and the natural
inclination of the sexes, one to another, and to their children. In this condition of mere
nature, either the parents between themselves dispose of the dominion over the child by
contract, or do not dispose thereof at all. If they dispose thereof, the right passeth
according to the contract. We find in history that the Amazons contracted with the men of
the neighbouring countries, to whom they had recourse for issue, that the issue male
should be sent back, but the female remain with themselves: so that the dominion of the
females was in the mother. |
|
[480] If there be no
contract, the dominion is in the mother. For in the condition of mere nature, where there
are no matrimonial laws, it cannot be known who is the father unless it be declared by the
mother; and therefore the right of dominion over the child dependeth on her will, and is
consequently hers. Again, seeing the infant is first in the power of the mother, so as she
may either nourish or expose it; if she nourish it, it oweth its life to the mother, and
is therefore obliged to obey her rather than any other; and by consequence the dominion
over it is hers. But if she expose it, and another find and nourish it, dominion is in him
that nourisheth it. For it ought to obey him by whom it is preserved, because preservation
of life being the end for which one man becomes subject to another, every man is supposed
to promise obedience to him in whose power it is to save or destroy him. |
|
[481] If the mother be the
father's subject, the child is in the father's power; and if the father be the mother's
subject (as when a sovereign queen marrieth one of her subjects), the child is subject to
the mother, because the father also is her subject. |
|
[482] If a man and a woman,
monarchs of two several kingdoms, have a child, and contract concerning who shall have the
dominion of him, the right of the dominion passeth by the contract. If they contract not,
the dominion followeth the dominion of the place of his residence. For the sovereign of
each country hath dominion over all that reside therein. |
|
[483] He that hath the
dominion over the child hath dominion also over the children of the child, and over their
children's children. For he that hath dominion over the person of a man hath dominion over
all that is his, without which dominion were but a title without the effect. |
|
[484] The right of
succession to paternal dominion proceedeth in the same manner as doth the right of
succession to monarchy, of which I have already sufficiently spoken in the precedent
chapter. |
|
[485] Dominion acquired by
conquest, or victory in war, is that which some writers call despotical from Despotes,
which signifieth a lord or master, and is the dominion of the master over his servant. And
this dominion is then acquired to the victor when the vanquished, to avoid the present
stroke of death, covenanteth, either in express words or by other sufficient signs of the
will, that so long as his life and the liberty of his body is allowed him, the victor
shall have the use thereof at his pleasure. And after such covenant made, the vanquished
is a servant, and not before: for by the word servant (whether it be derived from servire,
to serve, or from servare, to save, which I leave to grammarians to dispute) is not meant
a captive, which is kept in prison, or bonds, till the owner of him that took him, or
bought him of one that did, shall consider what to do with him: for such men, commonly
called slaves, have no obligation at all; but may break their bonds, or the prison; and
kill, or carry away captive their master, justly: but one that, being taken, hath corporal
liberty allowed him; and upon promise not to run away, nor to do violence to his master,
is trusted by him. |
|
[486] It is not therefore
the victory that giveth the right of dominion over the vanquished, but his own covenant.
Nor is he obliged because he is conquered; that is to say, beaten, and taken, or put to
flight; but because he cometh in and submitteth to the victor; nor is the victor obliged
by an enemy's rendering himself, without promise of life, to spare him for this his
yielding to discretion; which obliges not the victor longer than in his own discretion he
shall think fit. |
|
[487] And that which men do
when they demand, as it is now called, quarter (which the Greeks called Zogria, taking
alive) is to evade the present fury of the victor by submission, and to compound for their
life with ransom or service: and therefore he that hath quarter hath not his life given,
but deferred till further deliberation; for it is not a yielding on condition of life, but
to discretion. And then only is his life in security, and his service due, when the victor
hath trusted him with his corporal liberty. For slaves that work in prisons, or fetters,
do it not of duty, but to avoid the cruelty of their task-masters. |
|
[488] The master of the
servant is master also of all he hath, and may exact the use thereof; that is to say, of
his goods, of his labour, of his servants, and of his children, as often as he shall think
fit. For he holdeth his life of his master by the covenant of obedience; that is, of
owning and authorising whatsoever the master shall do. And in case the master, if he
refuse, kill him, or cast him into bonds, or otherwise punish him for his disobedience, he
is himself the author of the same, and cannot accuse him of injury. |
| Again, does it matter how dominion is
acquired? What is Hobbes reason for this position? |
[489] In sum, the rights
and consequences of both paternal and despotical dominion are the very same with those of
a sovereign by institution; and for the same reasons: which reasons are set down in the
precedent chapter. So that for a man that is monarch of diverse nations, he hath in one
the sovereignty by institution of the people assembled, and in another by conquest; that
is by the submission of each particular, to avoid death or bonds; to demand of one nation
more than of the other, from the title of conquest, as being a conquered nation, is an act
of ignorance of the rights of sovereignty. For the sovereign is absolute over both alike;
or else there is no sovereignty at all, and so every man may lawfully protect himself, if
he can, with his own sword, which is the condition of war. |
|
[490] By this it appears
that a great family, if it be not part of some Commonwealth, is of itself, as to the
rights of sovereignty, a little monarchy; whether that family consist of a man and his
children, or of a man and his servants, or of a man and his children and servants
together; wherein the father or master is the sovereign. But yet a family is not properly
a Commonwealth, unless it be of that power by its own number, or by other opportunities,
as not to be subdued without the hazard of war. For where a number of men are manifestly
too weak to defend themselves united, every one may use his own reason in time of danger
to save his own life, either by flight, or by submission to the enemy, as he shall think
best; in the same manner as a very small company of soldiers, surprised by an army, may
cast down their arms and demand quarter, or run away rather than be put to the sword. And
thus much shall suffice concerning what I find by speculation, and deduction, of sovereign
rights, from the nature, need, and designs of men in erecting of Commonwealths, and
putting themselves under monarchs or assemblies entrusted with power enough for their
protection. |
|
[491] Let us now consider
what the Scripture teacheth in the same point. To Moses the children of Israel say thus:
"Speak thou to us, and we will hear thee; but let not God speak to us, lest we
die" (Exodus, 20.19). This is absolute obedience to Moses. Concerning the right of
kings, God Himself, by the mouth of Samuel, saith, "This shall be the right of the
king you will have to reign over you. He shall take your sons, and set them to drive his
chariots, and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots, and gather in his
harvest; and to make his engines of war, and instruments of his chariots; and shall take
your daughters to make perfumes, to be his cooks, and bakers. He shall take your fields,
your vineyards, and your olive-yards, and give them to his servants. He shall take the
tithe of your corn and wine, and give it to the men of his chamber, and to his other
servants. He shall take your man-servants, and your maidservants, and the choice of your
youth, and employ them in his business. He shall take the tithe of your flocks; and you
shall be his servants" (I Samuel, 8.11-17). This is absolute power, and summed up in
the last words, you shall be his servants. Again, when the people heard what power their
king was to have, yet they consented thereto, and say thus, "We will be as all other
nations, and our king shall judge our causes, and go before us, to conduct our wars"
(Ibid., 8.19,20). Here is confirmed the right that sovereigns have, both to the militia
and to all judicature; in which is contained as absolute power as one man can possibly
transfer to another. Again, the prayer of King Solomon to God was this: "Give to thy
servant understanding, to judge thy people, and to discern between good and evil" (I
Kings, 3.9). It belonged therefore to the sovereign to be judge, and to prescribe the
rules of discerning good and evil: which rules are laws; and therefore in him is the
legislative power. Saul sought the life of David; yet when it was in his power to slay
Saul, and his servants would have done it, David forbade them, saying, "God forbid I
should do such an act against my Lord, the anointed of God" (I Samuel, 24.6). For
obedience of servants St. Paul saith, "Servants obey your masters in all things"
(Colossians, 3.22); and, "Children obey your parents in all things" (Ibid.,
3.20). There is simple obedience in those that are subject to paternal or despotical
dominion. Again, "The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' chair, and therefore all
that they shall bid you observe, that observe and do" (Matthew, 23.2,3). There again
is simple obedience. And St. Paul, "Warn them that they subject themselves to
princes, and to those that are in authority, and obey them" (Titus, 3.1). This
obedience is also simple. Lastly, our Saviour Himself acknowledges that men ought to pay
such taxes as are by kings imposed, where He says, "Give to Caesar that which is
Caesar's"; and paid such taxes Himself. And that the king's word is sufficient to
take anything from any subject, when there is need; and that the king is judge of that
need: for He Himself, as king of the Jews, commanded his Disciples to take the ass and
ass's colt to carry him into Jerusalem, saying, "Go into the village over against
you, and you shall find a she ass tied, and her colt with her; untie them, and bring them
to me. And if any man ask you, what you mean by it, say the Lord hath need of them: and
they will let them go" (Matthew, 21.2,3). They will not ask whether his necessity be
a sufficient title; nor whether he be judge of that necessity; but acquiesce in the will
of the Lord. |
|
[492] To these places may
be added also that of Genesis, "You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil"
(Genesis, 3.5). And, "Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the
tree, of which I commanded thee thou shouldest not eat?" (Ibid., 3. 11). For the
cognizance or judicature of good and evil, being forbidden by the name of the fruit of the
tree of knowledge, as a trial of Adam's obedience, the devil to inflame the ambition of
the woman, to whom that fruit already seemed beautiful, told her that by tasting it they
should be as gods, knowing good and evil. Whereupon having both eaten, they did indeed
take upon them God's office, which is judicature of good and evil, but acquired no new
ability to distinguish between them aright. And whereas it is said that, having eaten,
they saw they were naked; no man hath so interpreted that place as if they had been
formerly blind, and saw not their own skins: the meaning is plain that it was then they
first judged their nakedness (wherein it was God's will to create them) to be uncomely;
and by being ashamed did tacitly censure God Himself. And thereupon God saith, "Hast
thou eaten," etc., as if He should say, doest thou that owest me obedience take upon
thee to judge of my commandments? Whereby it is clearly, though allegorically, signified
that the commands of them that have the right to command are not by their subjects to be
censured nor disputed. |
|
[493] So that it appeareth
plainly, to my understanding, both from reason and Scripture, that the sovereign power,
whether placed in one man, as in monarchy, or in one assembly of men, as in popular and
aristocratical Commonwealths, is as great as possibly men can be imagined to make it. And
though of so unlimited a power, men may fancy many evil consequences, yet the consequences
of the want of it, which is perpetual war of every man against his neighbour, are much
worse. The condition of man in this life shall never be without inconveniences; but there
happeneth in no Commonwealth any great inconvenience but what proceeds from the subjects'
disobedience and breach of those covenants from which the Commonwealth hath its being. And
whosoever, thinking sovereign power too great, will seek to make it less, must subject
himself to the power that can limit it; that is to say, to a greater. |
| Note the nature of a science of government,
according to Hobbes. |
[494] The greatest
objection is that of the practice; when men ask where and when such power has by subjects
been acknowledged. But one may ask them again, when or where has there been a kingdom long
free from sedition and civil war? In those nations whose Commonwealths have been
long-lived, and not been destroyed but by foreign war, the subjects never did dispute of
the sovereign power. But howsoever, an argument from the practice of men that have not
sifted to the bottom, and with exact reason weighed the causes and nature of
Commonwealths, and suffer daily those miseries that proceed from the ignorance thereof, is
invalid. For though in all places of the world men should lay the foundation of their
houses on the sand, it could not thence be inferred that so it ought to be. The skill of
making and maintaining Commonwealths consisteth in certain rules, as doth arithmetic and
geometry; not, as tennis play, on practice only: which rules neither poor men have the
leisure, nor men that have had the leisure have hitherto had the curiosity or the method,
to find out. |
|
[495] CHAPTER XXI OF THE
LIBERTY OF SUBJECTS |
| How does he define liberty? |
[496] LIBERTY, or freedom,
signifieth properly the absence of opposition (by opposition, I mean external impediments
of motion); and may be applied no less to irrational and inanimate creatures than to
rational. For whatsoever is so tied, or environed, as it cannot move but within a certain
space, which space is determined by the opposition of some external body, we say it hath
not liberty to go further. And so of all living creatures, whilst they are imprisoned, or
restrained with walls or chains; and of the water whilst it is kept in by banks or vessels
that otherwise would spread itself into a larger space; we use to say they are not at
liberty to move in such manner as without those external impediments they would. But when
the impediment of motion is in the constitution of the thing itself, we use not to say it
wants the liberty, but the power, to move; as when a stone lieth still, or a man is
fastened to his bed by sickness. |
|
[497] And according to this
proper and generally received meaning of the word, a freeman is he that, in those things
which by his strength and wit he is able to do, is not hindered to do what he has a will
to. But when the words free and liberty are applied to anything but bodies, they are
abused; for that which is not subject to motion is not to subject to impediment: and
therefore, when it is said, for example, the way is free, no liberty of the way is
signified, but of those that walk in it without stop. And when we say a gift is free,
there is not meant any liberty of the gift, but of the giver, that was not bound by any
law or covenant to give it. So when we speak freely, it is not the liberty of voice, or
pronunciation, but of the man, whom no law hath obliged to speak otherwise than he did.
Lastly, from the use of the words free will, no liberty can be inferred of the will,
desire, or inclination, but the liberty of the man; which consisteth in this, that he
finds no stop in doing what he has the will, desire, or inclination to do. |
| How are fear and liberty consistent? |
[498] Fear and liberty are
consistent: as when a man throweth his goods into the sea for fear the ship should sink,
he doth it nevertheless very willingly, and may refuse to do it if he will; it is
therefore the action of one that was free: so a man sometimes pays his debt, only for fear
of imprisonment, which, because no body hindered him from detaining, was the action of a
man at liberty. And generally all actions which men do in Commonwealths, for fear of the
law, are actions which the doers had liberty to omit. |
| How are liberty and necessity consistent? |
[499] Liberty and necessity
are consistent: as in the water that hath not only liberty, but a necessity of descending
by the channel; so, likewise in the actions which men voluntarily do, which, because they
proceed their will, proceed from liberty, and yet because every act of man's will and
every desire and inclination proceedeth from some cause, and that from another cause, in a
continual chain (whose first link is in the hand of God, the first of all causes), proceed
from necessity. So that to him that could see the connexion of those causes, the necessity
of all men's voluntary actions would appear manifest. And therefore God, that seeth and
disposeth all things, seeth also that the liberty of man in doing what he will is
accompanied with the necessity of doing that which God will and no more, nor less. For
though men may do many things which God does not command, nor is therefore author of them;
yet they can have no passion, nor appetite to anything, of which appetite God's will is
not the cause. And did not His will assure the necessity of man's will, and consequently
of all that on man's will dependeth, the liberty of men would be a contradiction and
impediment to the omnipotence and liberty of God. And this shall suffice, as to the matter
in hand, of that natural liberty, which only is properly called liberty. |
|
[500] But as men, for the
attaining of peace and conservation of themselves thereby, have made an artificial man,
which we call a Commonwealth; so also have they made artificial chains, called civil laws,
which they themselves, by mutual covenants, have fastened at one end to the lips of that
man, or assembly, to whom they have given the sovereign power, and at the other to their
own ears. These bonds, in their own nature but weak, may nevertheless be made to hold, by
the danger, though not by the difficulty of breaking them. |
| What does the liberty of subjects in civil
society consist of? |
[501] In relation to these
bonds only it is that I am to speak now of the liberty of subjects. For seeing there is no
Commonwealth in the world wherein there be rules enough set down for the regulating of all
the actions and words of men (as being a thing impossible): it followeth necessarily that
in all kinds of actions, by the laws pretermitted, men have the liberty of doing what
their own reasons shall suggest for the most profitable to themselves. For if we take
liberty in the proper sense, for corporal liberty; that is to say, freedom from chains and
prison, it were very absurd for men to clamour as they do for the liberty they so
manifestly enjoy. Again, if we take liberty for an exemption from laws, it is no less
absurd for men to demand as they do that liberty by which all other men may be masters of
their lives. And yet as absurd as it is, this is it they demand, not knowing that the laws
are of no power to protect them without a sword in the hands of a man, or men, to cause
those laws to be put in execution. The liberty of a subject lieth therefore only in those
things which, in regulating their actions, the sovereign hath pretermitted: such as is the
liberty to buy, and sell, and otherwise contract with one another; to choose their own
abode, their own diet, their own trade of life, and institute their children as they
themselves think fit; and the like. |
|
[502] Nevertheless we are
not to understand that by such liberty the sovereign power of life and death is either
abolished or limited. For it has been already shown that nothing the sovereign
representative can do to a subject, on what pretence soever, can properly be called
injustice or injury; because every subject is author of every act the sovereign doth, so
that he never wanteth right to any thing, otherwise than as he himself is the subject of
God, and bound thereby to observe the laws of nature. And therefore it may and doth often
happen in Commonwealths that a subject may be put to death by the command of the sovereign
power, and yet neither do the other wrong; as when Jephthah caused his daughter to be
sacrificed: in which, and the like cases, he that so dieth had liberty to do the action,
for which he is nevertheless, without injury, put to death. And the same holdeth also in a
sovereign prince that putteth to death an innocent subject. For though the action be
against the law of nature, as being contrary to equity (as was the killing of Uriah by
David); yet it was not an injury to Uriah, but to God. Not to Uriah, because the right to
do what he pleased was given him by Uriah himself; and yet to God, because David was God's
subject and prohibited all iniquity by the law of nature. Which distinction, David
himself, when he repented the fact, evidently confirmed, saying, "To thee only have I
sinned." In the same manner, the people of Athens, when they banished the most potent
of their Commonwealth for ten years, thought they committed no injustice; and yet they
never questioned what crime he had done, but what hurt he would do: nay, they commanded
the banishment of they knew not whom; and every citizen bringing his oyster shell into the
market place, written with the name of him he desired should be banished, without actually
accusing him sometimes banished an Aristides, for his reputation of justice; and sometimes
a scurrilous jester, as Hyperbolus, to make a jest of it. And yet a man cannot say the
sovereign people of Athens wanted right to banish them; or an Athenian the liberty to
jest, or to be just. |
|
[503] The liberty whereof
there is so frequent and honourable mention in the histories and philosophy of the ancient
Greeks and Romans, and in the writings and discourse of those that from them have received
all their learning in the politics, is not the liberty of particular men, but the liberty
of the Commonwealth: which is the same with that which every man then should have, if
there were no civil laws nor Commonwealth at all. And the effects of it also be the same.
For as amongst masterless men, there is perpetual war of every man against his neighbour;
no inheritance to transmit to the son, nor to expect from the father; no propriety of
goods or lands; no security; but a full and absolute liberty in every particular man: so
in states and Commonwealths not dependent on one another, every Commonwealth, not every
man, has an absolute liberty to do what it shall judge, that is to say, what that man or
assembly that representeth it shall judge, most conducing to their benefit. But withal,
they live in the condition of a perpetual war, and upon the confines of battle, with their
frontiers armed, and cannons planted against their neighbours round about. The Athenians
and Romans were free; that is, free Commonwealths: not that any particular men had the
liberty to resist their own representative, but that their representative had the liberty
to resist, or invade, other people. There is written on the turrets of the city of Luca in
great characters at this day, the word LIBERTAS; yet no man can thence infer that a
particular man has more liberty or immunity from the service of the Commonwealth there
than in Constantinople. Whether a Commonwealth be monarchical or popular, the freedom is
still the same. |
|
[504] But it is an easy
thing for men to be deceived by the specious name of liberty; and, for want of judgement
to distinguish, mistake that for their private inheritance and birthright which is the
right of the public only. And when the same error is confirmed by the authority of men in
reputation for their writings on this subject, it is no wonder if it produce sedition and
change of government. In these western parts of the world we are made to receive our
opinions concerning the institution and rights of Commonwealths from Aristotle, Cicero,
and other men, Greeks and Romans, that, living under popular states, derived those rights,
not from the principles of nature, but transcribed them into their books out of the
practice of their own Commonwealths, which were popular; as the grammarians describe the
rules of language out of the practice of the time; or the rules of poetry out of the poems
of Homer and Virgil. And because the Athenians were taught (to keep them from desire of
changing their government) that they were freemen, and all that lived under monarchy were
slaves; therefore Aristotle puts it down in his Politics "In democracy, liberty is to
be supposed: for it is commonly held that no man is free in any other government"
(Aristotle, Politics, Bk VI). And as Aristotle, so Cicero and other writers have grounded
their civil doctrine on the opinions of the Romans, who were taught to hate monarchy: at
first, by them that, having deposed their sovereign, shared amongst them the sovereignty
of Rome; and afterwards by their successors. And by reading of these Greek and Latin
authors, men from their childhood have gotten a habit, under a false show of liberty, of
favouring tumults, and of licentious controlling the actions of their sovereigns; and
again of controlling those controllers; with the effusion of so much blood, as I think I
may truly say there was never anything so dearly bought as these western parts have bought
the learning of the Greek and Latin tongues. |
| When can a subject refuse the sovereign
(discussed throughout the rest of the chapter)? |
[505] To come now to the
particulars of the true liberty of a subject; that is to say, what are the things which,
though commanded by the sovereign, he may nevertheless without injustice refuse to do; we
are to consider what rights we pass away when we make a Commonwealth; or, which is all
one, what liberty we deny ourselves by owning all the actions, without exception, of the
man or assembly we make our sovereign. For in the act of our submission consisteth both
our obligation and our liberty; which must therefore be inferred by arguments taken from
thence; there being no obligation on any man which ariseth not from some act of his own;
for all men equally are by nature free. And because such arguments must either be drawn
from the express words, "I authorise all his actions," or from the intention of
him that submitteth himself to his power (which intention is to be understood by the end
for which he so submitteth), the obligation and liberty of the subject is to be derived
either from those words, or others equivalent, or else from the end of the institution of
sovereignty; namely, the peace of the subjects within themselves, and their defence
against a common enemy. |
|
[506] First therefore,
seeing sovereignty by institution is by covenant of every one to every one; and
sovereignty by acquisition, by covenants of the vanquished to the victor, or child to the
parent; it is manifest that every subject has liberty in all those things the right
whereof cannot by covenant be transferred. I have shown before, in the fourteenth Chapter,
that covenants not to defend a man's own body are void. Therefore, |
|
[507] If the sovereign
command a man, though justly condemned, to kill, wound, or maim himself; or not to resist
those that assault him; or to abstain from the use of food, air, medicine, or any other
thing without which he cannot live; yet hath that man the liberty to disobey. |
|
[508] If a man be
interrogated by the sovereign, or his authority, concerning a crime done by himself, he is
not bound (without assurance of pardon) to confess it; because no man, as I have shown in
the same chapter, can be obliged by covenant to accuse himself. |
|
[509] Again, the consent of
a subject to sovereign power is contained in these words, "I authorise, or take upon
me, all his actions"; in which there is no restriction at all of his own former
natural liberty: for by allowing him to kill me, I am not bound to kill myself when he
commands me. It is one thing to say, "Kill me, or my fellow, if you please";
another thing to say, "I will kill myself, or my fellow." It followeth,
therefore, that |
|
[510] No man is bound by
the words themselves, either to kill himself or any other man; and consequently, that the
obligation a man may sometimes have, upon the command of the sovereign, to execute any
dangerous or dishonourable office, dependeth not on the words of our submission, but on
the intention; which is to be understood by the end thereof. When therefore our refusal to
obey frustrates the end for which the sovereignty was ordained, then there is no liberty
to refuse; otherwise, there is. |
|
[511] Upon this ground a
man that is commanded as a soldier to fight against the enemy, though his sovereign have
right enough to punish his refusal with death, may nevertheless in many cases refuse,
without injustice; as when he substituteth a sufficient soldier in his place: for in this
case he deserteth not the service of the Commonwealth. And there is allowance to be made
for natural timorousness, not only to women (of whom no such dangerous duty is expected),
but also to men of feminine courage. When armies fight, there is on one side, or both, a
running away; yet when they do it not out of treachery, but fear, they are not esteemed to
do it unjustly, but dishonourably. For the same reason, to avoid battle is not injustice,
but cowardice. But he that enrolleth himself a soldier, or taketh impressed money, taketh
away the excuse of a timorous nature, and is obliged, not only to go to the battle, but
also not to run from it without his captain's leave. And when the defence of the
Commonwealth requireth at once the help of all that are able to bear arms, every one is
obliged; because otherwise the institution of the Commonwealth, which they have not the
purpose or courage to preserve, was in vain. |
|
[512] To resist the sword
of the Commonwealth in defence of another man, guilty or innocent, no man hath liberty;
because such liberty takes away from the sovereign the means of protecting us, and is
therefore destructive of the very essence of government. But in case a great many men
together have already resisted the sovereign power unjustly, or committed some capital
crime for which every one of them expecteth death, whether have they not the liberty then
to join together, and assist, and defend one another? Certainly they have: for they but
defend their lives, which the guilty man may as well do as the innocent. There was indeed
injustice in the first breach of their duty: their bearing of arms subsequent to it,
though it be to maintain what they have done, is no new unjust act. And if it be only to
defend their persons, it is not unjust at all. But the offer of pardon taketh from them to
whom it is offered the plea of self-defence, and maketh their perseverance in assisting or
defending the rest unlawful. |
|
[513] As for other
liberties, they depend on the silence of the law. In cases where the sovereign has
prescribed no rule, there the subject hath the liberty to do, or forbear, according to his
own discretion. And therefore such liberty is in some places more, and in some less; and
in some times more, in other times less, according as they that have the sovereignty shall
think most convenient. As for example, there was a time when in England a man might enter
into his own land, and dispossess such as wrongfully possessed it, by force. But in after
times that liberty of forcible entry was taken away by a statute made by the king in
Parliament. And in some places of the world men have the liberty of many wives: in other
places, such liberty is not allowed. |
|
[514] If a subject have a
controversy with his sovereign of debt, or of right of possession of lands or goods, or
concerning any service required at his hands, or concerning any penalty, corporal or
pecuniary, grounded on a precedent law, he hath the same liberty to sue for his right as
if it were against a subject, and before such judges as are appointed by the sovereign.
For seeing the sovereign demandeth by force of a former law, and not by virtue of his
power, he declareth thereby that he requireth no more than shall appear to be due by that
law. The suit therefore is not contrary to the will of the sovereign, and consequently the
subject hath the liberty to demand the hearing of his cause, and sentence according to
that law. But if he demand or take anything by pretence of his power, there lieth, in that
case, no action of law: for all that is done by him in virtue of his power is done by the
authority of every subject, and consequently, he that brings an action against the
sovereign brings it against himself. |
|
[515] If a monarch, or
sovereign assembly, grant a liberty to all or any of his subjects, which grant standing,
he is disabled to provide for their safety; the grant is void, unless he directly renounce
or transfer the sovereignty to another. For in that he might openly (if it had been his
will), and in plain terms, have renounced or transferred it and did not, it is to be
understood it was not his will, but that the grant proceeded from ignorance of the
repugnancy between such a liberty and the sovereign power: and therefore the sovereignty
is still retained, and consequently all those powers which are necessary to the exercising
thereof; such as are the power of war and peace, of judicature, of appointing officers and
counsellors, of levying money, and the rest named in the eighteenth Chapter. |
|
[516] The obligation of
subjects to the sovereign is understood to last as long, and no longer, than the power
lasteth by which he is able to protect them. For the right men have by nature to protect
themselves, when none else can protect them, can by no covenant be relinquished. The
sovereignty is the soul of the Commonwealth; which, once departed from the body, the
members do no more receive their motion from it. The end of obedience is protection;
which, wheresoever a man seeth it, either in his own or in another's sword, nature
applieth his obedience to it, and his endeavour to maintain it. And though sovereignty, in
the intention of them that make it, be immortal; yet is it in its own nature, not only
subject to violent death by foreign war, but also through the ignorance and passions of
men it hath in it, from the very institution, many seeds of a natural mortality, by
intestine discord. |
|
[517] If a subject be taken
prisoner in war, or his person or his means of life be within the guards of the enemy, and
hath his life and corporal liberty given him on condition to be subject to the victor, he
hath liberty to accept the condition; and, having accepted it, is the subject of him that
took him; because he had no other way to preserve himself. The case is the same if he be
detained on the same terms in a foreign country. But if a man be held in prison, or bonds,
or is not trusted with the liberty of his body, he cannot be understood to be bound by
covenant to subjection, and therefore may, if he can, make his escape by any means
whatsoever. |
|
[518] If a monarch shall
relinquish the sovereignty, both for himself and his heirs, his subjects return to the
absolute liberty of nature; because, though nature may declare who are his sons, and who
are the nearest of his kin, yet it dependeth on his own will, as hath been said in the
precedent chapter, who shall be his heir. If therefore he will have no heir, there is no
sovereignty, nor subjection. The case is the same if he die without known kindred, and
without declaration of his heir. For then there can no heir be known, and consequently no
subjection be due. |
|
[519] If the sovereign
banish his subject, during the banishment he is not subject. But he that is sent on a
message, or hath leave to travel, is still subject; but it is by contract between
sovereigns, not by virtue of the covenant of subjection. For whosoever entereth into
another's dominion is subject to all the laws thereof, unless he have a privilege by the
amity of the sovereigns, or by special license. |
|
[520] If a monarch subdued
by war render himself subject to the victor, his subjects are delivered from their former
obligation, and become obliged to the victor. But if he be held prisoner, or have not the
liberty of his own body, he is not understood to have given away the right of sovereignty;
and therefore his subjects are obliged to yield obedience to the magistrates formerly
placed, governing not in their own name, but in his. For, his right remaining, the
question is only of the administration; that is to say, of the magistrates and officers;
which if he have not means to name, he is supposed to approve those which he himself had
formerly appointed. |
|
[521] CHAPTER XXII OF
SYSTEMS SUBJECT POLITICAL AND PRIVATE |
| What different categories of political
institutions does Hobbes identify. |
[522] HAVING spoken of the
generation, form, and power of a Commonwealth, I am in order to speak next of the parts
thereof. And first of systems, which resemble the similar parts or muscles of a body
natural. By systems, I understand any numbers of men joined in one interest or one
business. Of which some are regular, and some irregular. Regular are those where one man,
or assembly of men, is constituted representative of the whole number. All other are
irregular. |
|
[523] Of regular, some are
absolute and independent, subject to none but their own representative: such are only
Commonwealths, of which I have spoken already in the five last precedent chapters. Others
are dependent; that is to say, subordinate to some sovereign power, to which every one, as
also their representative, is subject. |
|
[524] Of systems
subordinate, some are political, and some private. Political (otherwise called bodies
politic and persons in law) are those which are made by authority from the sovereign power
of the Commonwealth. Private are those which are constituted by subjects amongst
themselves, or by authority from a stranger. For no authority derived from foreign power,
within the dominion of another, is public there, but private. |
|
[525] And of private
systems, some are lawful; some unlawful: lawful are those which are allowed by the
Commonwealth; all other are unlawful. Irregular systems are those which, having no
representative, consist only in concourse of people; which if not forbidden by the
Commonwealth, nor made on evil design (such as are conflux of people to markets, or shows,
or any other harmless end), are lawful. But when the intention is evil, or (if the number
be considerable) unknown, they are unlawful. |
|
[526] In bodies politic the
power of the representative is always limited: and that which prescribeth the limits
thereof is the power sovereign. For power unlimited is absolute sovereignty. And the
sovereign, in every Commonwealth, is the absolute representative of all the subjects; and
therefore no other can be representative of any part of them, but so far forth as he shall
give leave: and to give leave to a body politic of subjects to have an absolute
representative, to all intents and purposes, were to abandon the government of so much of
the Commonwealth, and to divide the dominion, contrary to their peace and defence, which
the sovereign cannot be understood to do, by any grant that does not plainly and directly
discharge them of their subjection. For consequences of words are not the signs of his
will, when other consequences are signs of the contrary; but rather signs of error and
misreckoning, to which all mankind is too prone. |
|
[527] The bounds of that
power which is given to the representative of a body politic are to be taken notice of
from two things. One is their writ, or letters from the sovereign: the other is the law of
the Commonwealth. |
|
[528] For though in the
institution or acquisition of a Commonwealth, which is independent, there needs no
writing, because the power of the representative has there no other bounds but such as are
set out by the unwritten law of nature; yet in subordinate bodies, there are such
diversities of limitation necessary, concerning their businesses, times, and places, as
can neither be remembered without letters, nor taken notice of, unless such letters be
patent, that they may be read to them, and withal sealed, or testified, with the seals or
other permanent signs of the authority sovereign. |
|
[529] And because such
limitation is not always easy or perhaps possible to be described in writing, the ordinary
laws, common to all subjects, must determine what the representative may lawfully do in
all cases where the letters themselves are silent. And therefore |
|
[530] In a body politic, if
the representative be one man, whatsoever he does in the person of the body which is not
warranted in his letters, nor by the laws, is his own act, and not the act of the body,
nor of any other member thereof besides himself: because further than his letters or the
laws limit, he representeth no man's person, but his own. But what he does according to
these is the act of every one: for of the act of the sovereign every one is author,
because he is their representative unlimited; and the act of him that recedes not from the
letters of the sovereign is the act of the sovereign, and therefore every member of the
body is author of it. |
|
[531] But if the
representative be an assembly, whatsoever that assembly shall decree, not warranted by
their letters or the laws, is the act of the assembly, or body politic, and the act of
every one by whose vote the decree was made; but not the act of any man that being present
voted to the contrary; nor of any man absent, unless he voted it by procreation. It is the
act of the assembly because voted by the major part; and if it be a crime, the assembly
may be punished, as far forth as it is capable, as by dissolution, or forfeiture of their
letters (which is to such artificial and fictitious bodies, capital) or, if the assembly
have a common stock, wherein none of the innocent members have propriety, by pecuniary
mulct. For from corporal penalties nature hath bodies politic. But they that gave not
their vote are therefore innocent, because the assembly cannot represent any man in things
unwarranted by their letters, and consequently are not involved in their votes. |
|
[532] If the person of the
body politic, being in one man, borrow money of a stranger, that is, of one that is not of
the same body (for no letters need limit borrowing, seeing it is left to men's own
inclinations to limit lending), the debt is the representative's. For if he should have
authority from his letters to make the members pay what he borroweth, he should have by
consequence the sovereignty of them; and therefore the grant were either void, as
proceeding from error, commonly incident to human nature, and an insufficient sign of the
will of the granter; or if it be avowed by him, then is the representer sovereign, and
falleth not under the present question, which is only of bodies subordinate. No member
therefore is obliged to pay the debt so borrowed, but the representative himself: because
he that lendeth it, being a stranger to the letters, and to the qualification of the body,
understandeth those only for his debtors that are engaged; and seeing the representer can
engage himself, and none else, has him only debtor, who must therefore pay him, out of the
common stock, if there be any, or, if there be none, out of his own estate. |
|
[533] If he come into debt
by contract, or mulct, the case is the same. |
|
[534] But when the
representative is an assembly, and the debt to a stranger; all they, and only they, are
responsible for the debt that gave their votes to the borrowing of it, or to the contract
that made it due, or to the fact for which the mulct was imposed; because every one of
those in voting did engage himself for the payment: for he that is author of the borrowing
is obliged to the payment, even of the whole debt, though when paid by any one, he be
discharged. |
|
[535] But if the debt be to
one of the assembly, the assembly only is obliged to the payment, out of their common
stock, if they have any: for having liberty of vote, if he vote the money shall be
borrowed, he votes it shall be paid; if he vote it shall not be borrowed, or be absent,
yet because in lending he voteth the borrowing, he contradicteth his former vote, and is
obliged by the latter, and becomes both borrower and lender, and consequently cannot
demand payment from any particular man, but from the common treasury only; which failing,
he hath no remedy, nor complaint but against himself, that being privy to the acts of the
assembly, and to their means to pay, and not being enforced, did nevertheless through his
own folly lend his money. |
|
[536] It is manifest by
this that in bodies politic subordinate, and subject to a sovereign power, it is sometimes
not only lawful, but expedient, for a particular man to make open protestation against the
decrees of the representative assembly, and cause their dissent to be registered, or to
take witness of it; because otherwise they may be obliged to pay debts contracted, and be
responsible for crimes committed by other men. But in a sovereign assembly that liberty is
taken away, both because he that protesteth there denies their sovereignty, and also
because whatsoever is commanded by the sovereign power is as to the subject (though not so
always in the sight of God) justified by the command: for of such command every subject is
the author. |
|
[537] The variety of bodies
is almost infinite: for they are not only distinguished by the several affairs for which
they are constituted, wherein there is an unspeakable diversity; but also by the times,
places, and numbers, subject to many limitations. And as to their affairs, some are
ordained for government; as first, the government of a province may be committed to an
assembly of men, wherein all resolutions shall depend on the votes of the major part; and
then this assembly is a body politic, and their power limited by commission. This word
province signifies a charge or care of business, which he whose it is committeth to
another man to be administered for and under him; and therefore when in one Commonwealth
there be diverse countries that have their laws distinct one from another, or are far
distant in place, the administration of the government being committed to diverse persons,
those countries where the sovereign is not resident, but governs by commission, are called
provinces. But of the government of a province, by an assembly residing in the province
itself, there be few examples. The Romans, who had the sovereignty of many provinces, yet
governed them always by presidents and praetors; and not by assemblies, as they governed
the city of Rome and territories adjacent. In like manner, when there were colonies sent
from England to plant Virginia, and Summer Islands, though the government of them here
were committed to assemblies in London, yet did those assemblies never commit the
government under them to any assembly there, but did to each plantation send one governor:
for though every man, where he can be present by nature, desires to participate of
government; yet where they cannot be present, they are by nature also inclined to commit
the government of their common interest rather to a monarchical, than a popular, form of
government: which is also evident in those men that have great private estates; who, when
they are unwilling to take the pains of administering the business that belongs to them,
choose rather to trust one servant than an assembly either of their friends or servants.
But howsoever it be in fact, yet we may suppose the government of a province or colony
committed to an assembly: and when it is, that which in this place I have to say is this:
that whatsoever debt is by that assembly contracted, or whatsoever unlawful act is
decreed, is the act only of those that assented, and not of any that dissented, or were
absent, for the reasons before alleged. Also that an assembly residing out of the bounds
of that colony whereof they have the government cannot execute any power over the persons
or goods of any of the colony, to seize on them for debt, or other duty, in any place
without the colony itself, as having no jurisdiction nor authority elsewhere, but are left
to the remedy which the law of the place alloweth them. And though the assembly have right
to impose mulct upon any of their members that shall break the laws they make; yet out of
the colony itself, they have no right to execute the same. And that which is said here of
the rights of an assembly for the government of a province, or a colony, is applicable
also to an assembly for the government of a town, a university, or a college, or a church,
or for any other government over the persons of men. |
|
[538] And generally, in all
bodies politic, if any if any particular member conceive himself injured by the body
itself, the cognizance of his cause belonged to the sovereign, and those the sovereign
hath ordained for judges in such causes, or shall ordain for that particular cause; and
not to the body itself. For the whole body is in this case his fellow subject, which, in a
sovereign assembly, is otherwise: for there, if the sovereign be not judge, though in his
own cause, there can be no judge at all. |
|
[539] In a body politic,
for the well ordering of foreign traffic, the most commodious representative is an
assembly of all the members; that is to say, such a one as every one that adventureth his
money may be present at all the deliberations and resolutions of the body, if they will
themselves. For proof whereof we are to consider the end for which men that are merchants,
and may buy and sell, export and import their merchandise, according to their own
discretions, do nevertheless bind themselves up in one corporation. It is true, there be
few merchants that with the merchandise they buy at home can freight a ship to export it;
or with that they buy abroad, to bring it home; and have therefore need to join together
in one society, where every man may either participate of the gain, according to the
proportion of his adventure, or take his own, and sell what he transports, or imports, at
such prices as he thinks fit. But this is no body politic, there being no common
representative to oblige them to any other law than that which is common to all other
subjects. The end of their incorporating is to make their gain the greater; which is done
two ways: by sole buying, and sole selling, both at home and abroad. So that to grant to a
company of merchants to be a corporation, or body politic, is to grant them a double
monopoly, whereof one is to be sole buyers; another to be sole sellers. For when there is
a company incorporate for any particular foreign country, they only export the commodities
vendible in that country; which is sole buying at home, and sole selling abroad. For at
home there is but one buyer, and abroad but one that selleth; both which is gainful to the
merchant, because thereby they buy at home at lower, and sell abroad at higher, rates: and
abroad there is but one buyer of foreign merchandise, and but one that sells them at home,
both which again are gainful to the adventurers. |
|
[540] Of this double
monopoly one part is disadvantageous to the people at home, the other to foreigners. For
at home by their sole exportation they set what price they please on the husbandry and
handiworks of the people, and by the sole importation, what price they please on all
foreign commodities the people have need of, both which are ill for the people. On the
contrary, by the sole selling of the native commodities abroad, and sole buying the
foreign commodities upon the place, they raise the price of those, and abate the price of
these, to the disadvantage of the foreigner: for where but one selleth, the merchandise is
the dearer; and where but one buyeth, the cheaper: such corporations therefore are no
other than monopolies, though they would be very profitable for a Commonwealth, if, being
bound up into one body in foreign markets, they were at liberty at home, every man to buy
and sell at what price he could. |
|
[541] The end then of these
bodies of merchants, being not a common benefit to the whole body (which have in this case
no common stock, but what is deducted out of the particular adventures, for building,
buying, victualling and manning of ships), but the particular gain of every adventurer, it
is reason that every one be acquainted with the employment of his own; that is, that every
one be of the assembly that shall have the power to order the same; and be acquainted with
their accounts. And therefore the representative of such a body must be an assembly, where
every member of the body may be present at the consultations, if he will. |
|
[542] If a body politic of
merchants contract a debt to a stranger by the act of their representative assembly, every
member is liable by himself for the whole. For a stranger can take no notice of their
private laws, but considereth them as so many particular men, obliged every one to the
whole payment, till payment made by one dischargeth all the rest: but if the debt be to
one of the company, the creditor is debtor for the whole to himself, and cannot therefore
demand his debt, but only from the common stock, if there be any. |
|
[543] If the Commonwealth
impose a tax upon the body, it is understood to be laid upon every member proportionably
to his particular adventure in the company. For there is in this case no other common
stock, but what is made of their particular adventures. |
|
[544] If a mulct be laid
upon the body for some unlawful act, they only are liable by whose votes the act was
decreed, or by whose assistance it was executed; for in none of the rest is there any
other crime but being of the body; which, if a crime, because the body was ordained by the
authority of the Commonwealth, is not his. |
|
[545] If one of the members
be indebted to the body, he may be sued by the body, but his goods cannot be taken, nor
his person imprisoned by the authority of the body; but only by authority of the
Commonwealth: for they can do it by their own authority, they can by their own authority
give judgement that the debt is due; which is as much as to be judge in their own cause. |
|
[546] These bodies made for
the government of men, or of traffic, be either perpetual, or for a time prescribed by
writing. But there be bodies also whose times are limited, and that only by the nature of
their business. For example, if a sovereign monarch, or a sovereign assembly, shall think
fit to give command to the towns and other several parts of their territory to send to him
their deputies to inform him of the condition and necessities of the subjects, or to
advise with him for the making of good laws, or for any other cause, as with one person
representing the whole country, such deputies, having a place and time of meeting assigned
them, are there, and at that time, a body politic, representing every subject of that
dominion; but it is only for such matters as shall be propounded unto them by that man, or
assembly, that by the sovereign authority sent for them; and when it shall be declared
that nothing more shall be propounded, nor debated by them, the body is dissolved. For if
they were the absolute representative of the people, then were it the sovereign assembly;
and so there would be two sovereign assemblies, or two sovereigns, over the same people;
which cannot consist with their peace. And therefore where there is once a sovereignty,
there can be no absolute representation of the people, but by it. And for the limits of
how far such a body shall represent the whole people, they are set forth in the writing by
which they were sent for. For the people cannot choose their deputies to other intent than
is in the writing directed to them from their sovereign expressed. |
|
[547] Private bodies
regular and lawful are those that are constituted without letters, or other written
authority, saving the laws common to all other subjects. And because they be united in one
person representative, they are held for regular; such as are all families, in which the
father or master ordereth the whole family. For he obligeth his children, and servants, as
far as the law permitteth, though not further, because none of them are bound to obedience
in those actions which the law hath forbidden to be done. In all other actions, during the
time they are under domestic government, they are subject to their fathers and masters, as
to their immediate sovereigns. For the father and master being before the institution of
Commonwealth absolute sovereigns in their own families, they lose afterward no more of
their authority than the law of the Commonwealth taketh from them. |
|
[548] Private bodies
regular, but unlawful, are those that unite themselves into one person representative,
without any public authority at all; such as are the corporations of beggars, thieves and
gipsies, the better to order their trade of begging and stealing; and the corporations of
men that by authority from any foreign person themselves in another's dominion, for the
easier propagation of doctrines, and for making a party against the power of the
Commonwealth. |
|
[549] Irregular systems, in
their nature but leagues, or sometimes mere concourse of people without union to any
particular design, not by obligation of one to another, but proceeding only from a
similitude of wills and inclinations, become lawful, or unlawful, according to the
lawfulness, or unlawfulness, of every particular man's design therein: and his design is
to be understood by the occasion. |
|
[550] The leagues of
subjects, because leagues are commonly made for mutual defence, are in a Commonwealth
(which is no more than a league of all the subjects together) for the most part
unnecessary, and savour of unlawful design; and are for that cause unlawful, and go
commonly by the name of factions, or conspiracies. For a league being a connexion of men
by covenants, if there be no power given to any one man or assembly (as in the condition
of mere nature) to compel them to performance, is so long only valid as there ariseth no
just cause of distrust: and therefore leagues between Commonwealths, over whom there is no
human power established to keep them all in awe, are not only lawful, but also profitable
for the time they last. But leagues of the subjects of one and the same Commonwealth,
where every one may obtain his right by means of the sovereign power, are unnecessary to
the maintaining of peace and justice, and, in case the design of them be evil or unknown
to the Commonwealth, unlawful. For all uniting of strength by private men is, if for evil
intent, unjust; if for intent unknown, dangerous to the public, and unjustly concealed. |
|
[551] If the sovereign
power be in a great assembly, and a number of men, part of the assembly, without authority
consult a part to contrive the guidance of the rest, this is a faction, or conspiracy
unlawful, as being a fraudulent seducing of the assembly for their particular interest.
But if he whose private interest is to be debated and judged in the assembly make as many
friends as he can, in him it is no injustice, because in this case he is no part of the
assembly. And though he hire such friends with money, unless there be an express law
against it, yet it is not injustice. For sometimes, as men's manners are, justice cannot
be had without money, and every man may think his own cause just till it be heard and
judged. |
|
[552] In all Commonwealths,
if a private man entertain more servants than the government of his estate and lawful
employment he has for them requires, it is faction, and unlawful. For having the
protection of the Commonwealth, he needeth not the defence of private force. And whereas
in nations not thoroughly civilized, several numerous families have lived in continual
hostility and invaded one another with private force, yet it is evident enough that they
have done unjustly, or else that they had no Commonwealth. |
|
[553] And as factions for
kindred, so also factions for government of religion, as of Papists, Protestants, etc., or
of state, as patricians and plebeians of old time in Rome, and of aristocraticals and
democraticals of old time in Greece, are unjust, as being contrary to the peace and safety
of the people, and a taking of the sword out of the hand of the sovereign. |
|
[554] Concourse of people
is an irregular system, the lawfulness or unlawfulness whereof dependeth on the occasion,
and on the number of them that are assembled. If the occasion be lawful, and manifest, the
concourse is lawful; as the usual meeting of men at church, or at a public show, in usual
numbers: for if the numbers be extraordinarily great, the occasion is not evident; and
consequently he that cannot render a particular and good account of his being amongst them
is to be judged conscious of an unlawful and tumultuous design. It may be lawful for a
thousand men to join in a petition to be delivered to a judge or magistrate; yet if a
thousand men come to present it, it is a tumultuous assembly, because there needs but one
or two for that purpose. But in such cases as these, it is not a set number that makes the
assembly unlawful, but such a number as the present officers are not able to suppress and
bring to justice. |
|
[555] When an unusual
number of men assemble against a man whom they accuse, the assembly is an unlawful tumult;
because they may deliver their accusation to the magistrate by a few, or by one man. Such
was the case of St. Paul at Ephesus; where Demetrius, and a great number of other men,
brought two of Paul's companions before the magistrate, saying with one voice, "Great
is Diana of the Ephesians"; which was their way of demanding justice against them for
teaching the people such doctrine as was against their religion and trade. The occasion
here, considering the laws of that people, was just; yet was their assembly judged
unlawful, and the magistrate reprehended them for it, in these words, "If Demetrius
and the other workmen can accuse any man of any thing, there be pleas, and deputies; let
them accuse one another. And if you have any other thing to demand, your case may be
judged in an assembly lawfully called. For we are in danger to be accused for this day's
sedition, because there is no cause by which any man can render any reason of this
concourse of people" (Acts, 19.40). Where he calleth an assembly whereof men can give
no just account, a sedition, and such as they could not answer for. And this is all I
shall say concerning systems, and assemblies of people, which may be compared, as I said,
to the similar parts of man's body: such as be lawful, to the muscles; such as are
unlawful, to wens, biles, and apostems, engendered by the unnatural conflux of evil
humours. |
|
[556] CHAPTER XXIII OF THE
PUBLIC MINISTERS OF SOVEREIGN POWER |
| How does Hobbes differentiate among
different executive officers? |
[557] IN THE last chapter I
have spoken of the similar parts of a Commonwealth: in this I shall speak of the parts
organical, which are public ministers. |
|
[558] A public minister is
he that by the sovereign, whether a monarch or an assembly, is employed in any affairs,
with authority to represent in that employment the person of the Commonwealth. And whereas
every man or assembly that hath sovereignty representeth two persons, or, as the more
common phrase is, has two capacities, one natural and another politic; as a monarch hath
the person not only of the Commonwealth, but also of a man, and a sovereign assembly hath
the person not only of the Commonwealth, but also of the assembly: they that be servants
to them in their natural capacity are not public ministers; but those only that serve them
in the administration of the public business. And therefore neither ushers, nor sergeants,
nor other officers that wait on the assembly for no other purpose but for the commodity of
the men assembled, in an aristocracy or democracy; nor stewards, chamberlains, cofferers,
or any other officers of the household of a monarch, are public ministers in a monarchy. |
|
[559] Of public ministers,
some have charge committed to them of a general administration, either of the whole
dominion or of a part thereof. Of the whole, as to a protector, or regent, may be
committed by the predecessor of an infant king, during his minority, the whole
administration of his kingdom. In which case, every subject is so far obliged to obedience
as the ordinances he shall make, and the commands he shall give, be in the king's name,
and not inconsistent with his sovereign power. Of a part, or province; as when either a
monarch or a sovereign assembly shall give the general charge thereof to a governor,
lieutenant, prefect or viceroy: and in this case also, every one of that province is
obliged to all he shall do in the name of the sovereign, and that not incompatible with
the sovereign's right. For such protectors, viceroys, and governors have no other right
but what depends on the sovereigns will; and no commission that can be given them can be
interpreted for a declaration of the will to transfer the sovereignty, without express and
perspicuous words to that purpose. And this kind of public ministers resembleth the nerves
and tendons that move the several limbs of a body natural. |
|
[560] Others have special
administration; that is to say, charges of some special business, either at home or
abroad: as at home, first, for the economy of a Commonwealth, they that have authority
concerning the treasury, as tributes, impositions, rents, fines, or whatsoever public
revenue, to collect, receive, issue, or take the accounts thereof, are public ministers:
ministers, because they serve the person representative, and can do nothing against his
command, nor without his authority; public, because they serve him in his political
capacity. |
|
[561] Secondly, they that
have authority concerning the militia; to have the custody of arms, forts, ports; to levy,
pay, or conduct soldiers; or to provide for any necessary thing for the use of war, either
by land or sea, are public ministers. But a soldier without command, though he fight for
the Commonwealth, does not therefore represent the person of it; because there is none to
represent it to. For every one that hath command represents it to them only whom he
commandeth. |
|
[562] They also that have
authority to teach, or to enable others to teach the people their duty to the sovereign
power, and instruct them in the knowledge of what is just and unjust, thereby to render
them more apt to live in godliness and in peace amongst themselves, and resist the public
enemy, are public ministers: ministers, in that they do it not by their own authority, but
by another's; and public, because they do it, or should do it, by no authority but that of
the sovereign. The monarch or the sovereign assembly only hath immediate authority from
God to teach and instruct the people; and no man but the sovereign receiveth his power Dei
gratia simply; that is to say, from the favour of none but God: all other receive theirs
from the favour and providence of God and their sovereigns; as in a monarchy Dei gratia et
regis; or Dei providentia et voluntate regis. |
|
[563] They also to whom
jurisdiction is given are public ministers. For in their seats of justice they represent
the person of the sovereign; and their sentence is his sentence; for, as hath been before
declared, all judicature is essentially annexed to the sovereignty; and therefore all
other judges are but ministers of him or them that have the sovereign power. And as
controversies are of two sorts, namely of fact and of law; so are judgements, some of
fact, some of law: and consequently in the same controversy, there may be two judges, one
of fact, another of law. |
|
[564] And in both these
controversies, there may arise a controversy between the party judged and the judge;
which, because they be both subjects to the sovereign, ought in equity to be judged by men
agreed on by consent of both; for no man can be judge in his own cause. But the sovereign
is already agreed on for judged by them both, and is therefore either to hear the cause,
and determine it himself, or appoint for judge such as they shall both agree on. And this
agreement is then understood to be made between them diverse ways; as first, if the
defendant be allowed to except against such of his judges whose interest maketh him
suspect them (for as to the complainant, he hath already chosen his own judge); those
which he excepteth not against are judges he himself agrees on. Secondly, if he appeal to
any other judge, he can appeal no further; for his appeal is his choice. Thirdly, if he
appeal to the sovereign himself, and he by himself, or by delegates which the parties
shall agree on, give sentence; that sentence is final: for the defendant is judged by his
own judges, that is to say, by himself. |
|
[565] These properties of
just and rational judicature considered, I cannot forbear to observe the excellent
constitution of the courts of justice established both for common and also for public
pleas in England. By common pleas, I mean those where both the complainant and defendant
are subjects: and by public (which are also called pleas of the crown) those where the
complainant is the sovereign. For whereas there were two orders of men, whereof one was
lords, the other commons, the lords had this privilege, to have for judges in all capital
crimes none but lords; and of them, as many as would be present; which being ever
acknowledged as a privilege of favour, their judges were none but such as they had
themselves desired. And in all controversies, every subject (as also in civil
controversies the lords) had for judges men of the country where the matter in controversy
lay; against which he might make his exceptions, till at last twelve men without exception
being agreed on, they were judged by those twelve. So that having his own judges, there
could be nothing alleged by the party why the sentence should not be final. These public
persons, with authority from the sovereign power, either to instruct or judge the people,
are such members of the Commonwealth as may fitly be compared to the organs of voice in a
body natural. |
|
[566] Public ministers are
also all those that have authority from the sovereign to procure the execution of
judgements given; to publish the sovereigns commands; to suppress tumults; to apprehend
and imprison malefactors; and other acts tending to the conservation of the peace. For
every act they do by such authority is the act of the Commonwealth; and their service
answerable to that of the hands in a body natural. |
|
[567] Public ministers
abroad are those that represent the person of their own sovereign to foreign states. Such
are ambassadors, messengers, agents, and heralds, sent by public authority, and on public
business. |
|
[568] But such as are sent
by authority only of some private party of a troubled state, though they be received, are
neither public nor private ministers of the Commonwealth, because none of their actions
have the Commonwealth for author. Likewise, an ambassador sent from a prince to
congratulate, condole, or to assist at a solemnity; though the authority be public, yet
because the business is private, and belonging to him in his natural capacity, is a
private person. Also if a man be sent into another country, secretly to explore their
counsels and strength; though both the authority and the business be public, yet because
there is none to take notice of any person in him, but his own, he is but a private
minister; but yet a minister of the Commonwealth; and may be compared to an eye in the
body natural. And those that are appointed to receive the petitions or other informations
of the people, and are, as it were, the public ear, are public ministers and represent
their sovereign in that office. |
|
[569] Neither a counsellor,
nor a council of state, if we consider with no authority judicature or command, but only
of giving advice to the sovereign when it is required, or of offering it when it is not
required, is a public person. For the advice is addressed to the sovereign only, whose
person cannot in his own presence be represented to him by another. But a body of
counsellors are never without some other authority, either of judicature or of immediate
administration: as in a monarchy, they represent the monarch in delivering his commands to
the public ministers: in a democracy, the council or senate propounds the result of their
deliberations to the people, as a council; but when they appoint judges, or hear causes,
or give audience to ambassadors, it is in the quality of a minister of the people: and in
an aristocracy the council of state is the sovereign assembly itself, and gives counsel to
none but themselves. |
|
[570] CHAPTER XXIV OF THE
NUTRITION AND PROCREATION OF A COMMONWEALTH |
| How does property (propriety) originate? |
[571] THE NUTRITION of a
Commonwealth consisteth in the plenty and distribution of materials conducing to life: in
concoction or preparation, and, when concocted, in the conveyance of it by convenient
conduits to the public use. |
|
[572] As for the plenty of
matter, it is a thing limited by nature to those commodities which, from the two breasts
of our common mother, land and sea, God usually either freely giveth or for labour selleth
to mankind. |
|
[573] For the matter of
this nutriment consisting in animals, vegetables, and minerals, God hath freely laid them
before us, in or near to the face of the earth, so as there needeth no more but the labour
and industry of receiving them. Insomuch as plenty dependeth, next to God's favour, merely
on the labour and industry of men. |
|
[574] This matter, commonly
called commodities, is partly native and partly foreign: native, that which is to be had
within the territory of the Commonwealth; foreign, that which is imported from without.
And because there is no territory under the dominion of one Commonwealth, except it be of
very vast extent, that produceth all things needful for the maintenance and motion of the
whole body; and few that produce not something more than necessary; the superfluous
commodities to be had within become no more superfluous, but supply these wants at home,
by importation of that which may be had abroad, either by exchange, or by just war, or by
labour: for a man's labour also is a commodity exchangeable for benefit, as well as any
other thing: and there have been Commonwealths that, having no more territory than hath
served them for habitation, have nevertheless not only maintained, but also increased
their power, partly by the labour of trading from one place to another, and partly by
selling the manufactures, whereof the materials were brought in from other places. |
|
[575] The distribution of
the materials of this nourishment is the constitution of mine, and thine, and his; that is
to say, in one word, propriety; and belonged in all kinds of Commonwealth to the sovereign
power. For where there is no Commonwealth, there is, as hath been already shown, a
perpetual war of every man against his neighbour; and therefore everything is his that
getteth it and keepeth it by force; which is neither propriety nor community, but
uncertainty. Which is so evident that even Cicero, a passionate defender of liberty, in a
public pleading attributeth all propriety to the law civil: "Let the civil law,"
saith he, "be once abandoned, or but negligently guarded, not to say oppressed, and
there is nothing that any man can be sure to receive from his ancestor, or leave to his
children." And again: "Take away the civil law, and no man knows what is his
own, and what another man's." Seeing therefore the introduction of propriety is an
effect of Commonwealth, which can do nothing but by the person that represents it, it is
the act only of the sovereign; and consisteth in the laws, which none can make that have
not the sovereign power. And this they well knew of old, who called that Nomos (that is to
say, distribution), which we call law; and defined justice by distributing to every man
his own. |
|
[576] In this distribution,
the first law is for division of the land itself: wherein the sovereign assigneth to every
man a portion, according as he, and not according as any subject, or any number of them,
shall judge agreeable to equity and the common good. The children of Israel were a
Commonwealth in the wilderness; but wanted the commodities of the earth till they were
masters of the Land of Promise; which afterward was divided amongst them, not by their own
discretion, but by the discretion of Eleazar the priest, and Joshua their general: who
when there were twelve tribes, making them thirteen by subdivision of the tribe of Joseph,
made nevertheless but twelve portions of the land, and ordained for the tribe of Levi no
land, but assigned them the tenth part of the whole fruits; which division was therefore
arbitrary. And though a people coming into possession of a land by war do not always
exterminate the ancient inhabitants, as did the Jews, but leave to many, or most, or all
of them their estates; yet it is manifest they hold them afterwards, as of the victor's
distribution; as the people of England held all theirs of William the Conqueror. |
| What are the rights of the sovereign over
property? |
[577] From whence we may
collect that the propriety which a subject hath in his lands consisteth in a right to
exclude all other subjects from the use of them; and not to exclude their sovereign, be it
an assembly or a monarch. For seeing the sovereign, that is to say, the Commonwealth
(whose person he representeth), is understood to do nothing but in order to the common
peace and security, this distribution of lands is to be understood as done in order to the
same: and consequently, whatsoever distribution he shall make in prejudice thereof is
contrary to the will of every subject that committed his peace and safety to his
discretion and conscience, and therefore by the will of every one of them is to be reputed
void. It is true that a sovereign monarch, or the greater part of a sovereign assembly,
may ordain the doing of many things in pursuit of their passions, contrary to their own
consciences, which is a breach of trust and of the law of nature; but this is not enough
to authorize any subject, either to make war upon, or so much as to accuse of injustice,
or any way to speak evil of their sovereign; because they have authorized all his actions,
and, in bestowing the sovereign power, made them their own. But in what cases the commands
of sovereigns are contrary to equity and the law of nature is to be considered hereafter
in another place. |
|
[578] In the distribution
of land, the Commonwealth itself may be conceived to have a portion, and possess and
improve the same by their representative; and that such portion may be made sufficient to
sustain the whole expense to the common peace and defence necessarily required: which were
very true, if there could be any representative conceived free from human passions and
infirmities. But the nature of men being as it is, the setting forth of public land, or of
any certain revenue for the Commonwealth, is in vain, and tendeth to the dissolution of
government, to the condition of mere nature, and war, as soon as ever the sovereign power
falleth into the hands of a monarch, or of an assembly, that are either too negligent of
money or too hazardous in engaging the public stock into long or costly war. Commonwealths
can endure no diet: for seeing their expense is not limited by their own appetite but by
external accidents, and the appetites of their neighbours, the public riches cannot be
limited by other limits than those which the emergent occasions shall require. And whereas
in England, there were by the Conqueror diverse lands reserved to his own use (besides
forests and chases, either for his recreation or for preservation of woods), and diverse
services reserved on the land he gave his subjects; yet it seems they were not reserved
for his maintenance in his public, but in his natural capacity: for he and his successors
did, for all that, lay arbitrary taxes on all subjects' land when they judged it
necessary. Or if those public lands and services were ordained as a sufficient maintenance
of the Commonwealth, it was contrary to the scope of the institution, being (as it
appeared by those ensuing taxes) insufficient and (as it appears by the late small revenue
of the Crown) subject to alienation and diminution. It is therefore in vain to assign a
portion to the Commonwealth, which may sell or give it away, and does sell and give it
away when it is done by their representative. |
|
[579] As the distribution
of lands at home, so also to assign in what places, and for what commodities, the subject
shall traffic abroad belonged to the sovereign. For if it did belong to private persons to
use their own discretion therein, some of them would be drawn for gain, both to furnish
the enemy with means to hurt the Commonwealth, and hurt it themselves by importing such
things as, pleasing men's appetites, be nevertheless noxious, or at least unprofitable to
them. And therefore it belonged to the Commonwealth (that is, to the sovereign only) to
approve or disapprove both of the places and matter of foreign traffic. |
|
[580] Further, seeing it is
not enough to the sustentation of a Commonwealth that every man have a propriety in a
portion of land, or in some few commodities, or a natural property in some useful art, and
there is no art in the world but is necessary either for the being or well-being almost of
every particular man; it is necessary that men distribute that which they can spare, and
transfer their propriety therein mutually one to another by exchange and mutual contract.
And therefore it belonged to the Commonwealth (that is to say, to the sovereign) to
appoint in what manner all kinds of contract between subjects (as buying, selling,
exchanging, borrowing, lending, letting, and taking to hire) are to be made, and by what
words and words and sign they shall be understood for valid. And for the matter and
distribution of the nourishment to the several members of the Commonwealth, thus much,
considering the model of the whole work, is sufficient. |
|
[581] By concoction, I
understand the reducing of all commodities which are not presently consumed, but reserved
for nourishment in time to come, to something of equal value, and withal so portable as
not to hinder the motion of men from place to place; to the end a man may have in what
place soever such nourishment as the place affordeth. And this is nothing else but gold,
and silver, and money. For gold and silver, being, as it happens, almost in all countries
of the world highly valued, is a commodious measure of the value of all things else
between nations; and money, of what matter soever coined by the sovereign of a
Commonwealth, is a sufficient measure of the value of all things else between the subjects
of that Commonwealth. By the means of which measures all commodities, movable and
immovable, are made to accompany a man to all places of his resort, within and without the
place of his ordinary residence; and the same passeth from man to man within the
Commonwealth, and goes round about, nourishing, as it passeth, every part thereof; in so
much as this concoction is, as it were, the sanguification of the Commonwealth: for
natural blood is in like manner made of the fruits of the earth; and, circulating,
nourisheth by the way every member of the body of man. |
|
[582] And because silver
and gold have their value from the matter itself, they have first this privilege; that the
value of them cannot be altered by the power of one nor of a few Commonwealths; as being a
common measure of the commodities of all places. But base money may easily be enhanced or
abased. Secondly, they have the privilege to make Commonwealths move and stretch out their
arms, when need is, into foreign countries; and supply, not only private subjects that
travel, but also whole armies with provision. But that coin, which is not considerable for
the matter, but for the stamp of the place, being unable to endure change of air, hath its
effect at home only; where also it is subject to the change of laws, and thereby to have
the value diminished, to the prejudice many times of those that have it. |
|
[583] The conduits and ways
by which it is conveyed to the public use are of two sorts: one, that conveyeth it to the
public coffers; the other, that issueth the same out again for public payments. Of the
first sort are collectors, receivers, and treasurers; of the second are the treasurers
again, and the officers appointed for payment of several public or private ministers. And
in this also the artificial man maintains his resemblance with the natural; whose veins,
receiving the blood from the several parts of the body, carry it to the heart; where,
being made vital, the heart by the arteries sends it out again, to enliven and enable for
motion all the members of the same. |
|
[584] The procreation or
children of a Commonwealth are those we call plantations, or colonies; which are numbers
of men sent out from the Commonwealth, under a conductor or governor, to inhabit a foreign
country, either formerly void of inhabitants, or made void then by war. And when a colony
is settled, they are either a Commonwealth of themselves, discharged of their subjection
to their sovereign that sent them (as hath been done by many Commonwealths of ancient
time), in which case the Commonwealth from which they went was called their metropolis, or
mother, and requires no more of them than fathers require of the children whom they
emancipate and make free from their domestic government, which is honour and friendship;
or else they remain united to their metropolis, as were the colonies of the people of
Rome; and then they are no Commonwealths themselves, but provinces, and parts of the
Commonwealth that sent them. So that the right of colonies, saving honour and league with
their metropolis, dependeth wholly on their license, or letters, by which their sovereign
authorized them to plant. |
|
[585] CHAPTER XXV OF
COUNSEL |
| How should the ruler accept counsel? |
[586] HOW fallacious it is
to judge of the nature of things by the ordinary and inconstant use of words appeareth in
nothing more than in the confusion of counsels and commands, arising from the imperative
manner of speaking in them both, and in many other occasions besides. For the words do
this are the words not only of him that commandeth; but also of him that giveth counsel;
and of him that exhorteth; and yet there are but few that see not that these are very
different things; or that cannot distinguish between when they when they perceive who it
is that speaketh, and to whom the speech is directed, and upon what occasion. But finding
those phrases in men's writings, and being not able or not willing to enter into a
consideration of the circumstances, they mistake sometimes the precepts of counsellors for
the precepts of them that command; and sometimes the contrary; according as it best
agreeth with the conclusions they would infer, or the actions they approve. To avoid which
mistakes and render to those terms of commanding, counselling, and exhorting, their proper
and distinct significations, I define them thus. |
|
[587] Command is where a
man saith, "Do this," or "Do not this," without expecting other reason
than the will of him that says it. From this it followeth manifestly that he that
commandeth pretendeth thereby his own benefit: for the reason of his command is his own
will only, and the proper object of every man's will is some good to himself. |
|
[588] Counsel is where a
man saith, "Do," or "Do not this," and deduceth his reasons from the
benefit that arriveth by it to him to whom he saith it. And from this it is evident that
he that giveth counsel pretendeth only (whatsoever he intendeth) the good of him to whom
he giveth it. |
|
[589] Therefore between
counsel and command, one great difference is that command is directed to a man's own
benefit, and counsel to the benefit of another man. And from this ariseth another
difference, that a man may be obliged to do what he is commanded; as when he hath
covenanted to obey: but he cannot be obliged to do as he is counselled, because the hurt
of not following it is his own; or if he should covenant to follow it, then is the counsel
turned into the nature of a command. A third difference between them is that no man can
pretend a right to be of another man's counsel; because he is not to pretend benefit by it
to himself: but to demand right to counsel another argues a will to know his designs, or
to gain some other good to himself; which, as I said before, is of every man's will the
proper object. |
|
[590] This also is incident
to the nature of counsel; that whatsoever it be, he that asketh it cannot in equity accuse
or punish it: for to ask counsel of another is to permit him to give such counsel as he
shall think best; and consequently, he that giveth counsel to his sovereign (whether a
monarch or an assembly) when he asketh it, cannot in equity be punished for it, whether
the same be conformable to the opinion of the most, or not, so it be to the proposition in
debate. For if the sense of the assembly can be taken notice of, before the debate be
ended, they should neither ask nor take any further counsel; for sense of the assembly is
the resolution of the debate and end of all deliberation. And generally he that demandeth
counsel is author of it, and therefore cannot punish it; and what the sovereign cannot, no
man else can. But if one subject giveth counsel to another to do anything contrary to the
laws, whether that counsel proceed from evil intention or from ignorance only, it is
punishable by the Commonwealth; because ignorance of the law is no good excuse, where
every man is bound to take notice of the laws to which he is subject. |
|
[591] Exhortation, and
dehortation is counsel, accompanied with signs in him that giveth it of vehement desire to
have it followed; or, to say it more briefly, counsel vehemently pressed. For he that
exhorteth doth not deduce the consequences of what he adviseth to be done, and tie himself
therein to the rigor of true reasoning, but encourages him he counselleth to action: as he
that dehorteth deterreth him from it. And therefore they have in their speeches a regard
to the common passions and opinions of men, in deducing their reasons; and make use of
similitudes, metaphors, examples, and other tools of oratory, to persuade their hearers of
the utility, honour, or justice of following their advice. From whence may be inferred,
first, that exhortation and dehortation is directed to the good of him that giveth the
counsel, not of him that asketh it, which is contrary to the duty of a counsellor; who, by
the definition of counsel, ought to regard, not his own benefit, but his whom he adviseth.
And that he directeth his counsel to his own benefit is manifest enough by the long and
vehement urging, or by the artificial giving thereof; which being not required of him, and
consequently proceeding from his own occasions, is directed principally to his own
benefit, and but accidentally to the good of him that is counselled, or not at all. |
|
[592] Secondly, that the
use of exhortation and dehortation lieth only where a man is to speak to a multitude,
because when the speech is addressed to one, he may interrupt him and examine his reasons
more rigorously than can be done in a multitude; which are too many to enter into dispute
and dialogue with him that speaketh indifferently to them all at once. |
|
[593] Thirdly, that they
that exhort and dehort, where they are required to give counsel, are corrupt counsellors
and, as it were, bribed by their own interest. For though the counsel they give be never
so good, yet he that gives it is no more a good counsellor than he that giveth a just
sentence for a reward is a just judge. But where a man may lawfully command, as a father
in his family, or a leader in an army, his exhortations and dehortations are not only
lawful, but also necessary and laudable: but when they are no more counsels, but commands;
which when they are for execution of sour labour, sometimes necessity, and always
humanity, requireth to be sweetened in the delivery by encouragement, and in the tune and
phrase of counsel rather than in harsher language of command. |
|
[594] Examples of the
difference between command and counsel we may take from the forms of speech that express
them in Holy Scripture. "Have no other Gods but me"; "Make to thyself no
graven image"; "Take not God's name in vain"; "Sanctify the
Sabbath"; "Honour thy parents"; "Kill not"; "Steal
not," etc. are commands, because the reason for which we are to obey them is drawn
from the will of God our King, whom we are obliged to obey. But these words, "Sell
all thou hast; give it to the poor; and follow me," are counsel, because the reason
for which we are to do so is drawn from our own benefit, which is this; that we shall have
"treasure in Heaven." These words, "Go into the village over against you,
and you shall find an ass tied, and her colt; loose her, and bring her to me," are a
command; for the reason of their fact is drawn from the will of their master: but these
words, "Repent, and be baptized in the name of Jesus," are counsel; because the
reason why we should so do tendeth not to any benefit of God Almighty, who shall still be
King in what manner soever we rebel, but of ourselves, who have no other means of avoiding
the punishment hanging over us for our sins. |
|
[595] As the difference of
counsel from command hath been now deduced from the nature of counsel, consisting in a
deducing of the benefit or hurt that may arise to him that is to be to be counselled, by
the necessary or probable consequences of the action he propoundeth; so may also the
differences between apt and inept counsellors be derived from the same. For experience,
being but memory of the consequences of like actions formerly observed, and counsel but
the speech whereby that experience is made known to another, the virtues and defects of
counsel are the same with the virtues and defects intellectual: and to the person of a
Commonwealth, his counsellors serve him in the place of memory and mental discourse. But
with this resemblance of the Commonwealth to a natural man, there is one dissimilitude
joined, of great importance; which is that a natural man receiveth his experience from the
natural objects of sense, which work upon him without passion or interest of their own;
whereas they that give counsel to the representative person of a Commonwealth may have,
and have often, their particular ends and passions that render their counsels always
suspected, and many times unfaithful. And therefore we may set down for the first
condition of a good counsellor: that his ends and interest be not inconsistent with the
ends and interest of him he counselleth. |
|
[596] Secondly, because the
office of a counsellor, when an action comes into deliberation, is to make manifest the
consequences of it in such manner as he that is counselled may be truly and evidently
informed, he ought to propound his advice in such form of speech as may make the truth
most evidently appear; that is to say, with as firm ratiocination, as significant and
proper language, and as briefly, as the evidence will permit. And therefore rash and
unevident inferences, such as are fetched only from examples, or authority of books, and
are not arguments of what is good or evil, but witnesses of fact or of opinion; obscure,
confused, and ambiguous expressions; also all metaphorical speeches tending to the
stirring up of passion (because such reasoning and such expressions are useful only to
deceive or to lead him we counsel towards other ends than his own), are repugnant to the
office of a counsellor. |
|
[597] Thirdly, because the
ability of counselling proceedeth from experience and long study, and no man is presumed
to have experience in all those things that to the administration of a great Commonwealth
are necessary to be known, no man is presumed to be a good counsellor but in such business
as he hath not only been much versed in, but hath also much meditated on and considered.
For seeing the business of a Commonwealth is this; to preserve the people in peace at
home, and defend them against foreign invasion; we shall find it requires great knowledge
of the disposition of mankind, of the rights of government, and of the nature of equity,
law, justice, and honour, not to be attained without study; and of the strength,
commodities, places, both of their own country and their neighbours'; as also of the
inclinations and designs of all nations that may any way annoy them. And this is not
attained to without much experience. Of which things, not only the whole sum, but every
one of the particulars requires the age and observation of a man in years, and of more
than ordinary study. The wit required for counsel, as I have said before (Chapter VIII),
is judgement. And the differences of men in that point come from different education; of
some, to one kind of study or business, and of others, to another. When for the doing of
anything there be infallible rules (as in engines and edifices, the rules of geometry),
all the experience of the world cannot equal his counsel that has learned or found out the
rule. And when there is no such rule, he that hath most experience in that particular kind
of business has therein the best judgement, and is the best counsellor. |
|
[598] Fourthly, to be able
to give counsel to a Commonwealth, in a business that hath reference to another
Commonwealth, it is necessary to be acquainted with the intelligences and letters that
come from thence, and with all the records of treaties and other transactions of state
between them; which none can do but such as the representative shall think fit. By which
we may see that they who are not called to counsel can have no good counsel in such cases
to obtrude. |
|
[599] Fifthly, supposing
the number of counsellors equal, a man is better counselled by hearing them apart than in
an assembly; and that for many causes. First, in hearing them apart, you have the advice
of every man; but in an assembly many of them deliver their advice with aye or no, or with
their hands or feet, not moved by their own sense, but by the eloquence of another, or for
fear of displeasing some that have spoken, or the whole by contradiction, or for fear of
appearing duller in apprehension than those that have applauded the contrary opinion.
Secondly, in an assembly of many there cannot choose but be some interests are contrary to
that of the public; and these their interests make passionate, and passion eloquent, and
eloquence draws others into the same advice. For the passions of men, which asunder are
moderate, as the heat of one brand; in assembly are like many brands that inflame one
another (especially when they blow one another with orations) to the setting of the
Commonwealth on fire, under pretence of counselling it. Thirdly, in hearing every man
apart, one may examine, when there is need, the truth or probability of his reasons, and
of the grounds of the advice he gives, by frequent interruptions and objections; which
cannot be done in an assembly, where in every difficult question a man is rather astonied
and dazzled with the variety of discourse upon it, than informed of the course he ought to
take. Besides, there cannot be an assembly of many, called together for advice, wherein
there be not some that have the ambition the ambition to be thought eloquent, and also
learned in the politics; and give not their advice with care of the business propounded,
but of the applause of their motley orations, made of the diverse colored threads or
shreds of thread or shreds of authors; which is an impertinence, at least, that takes away
the time of serious consultation, and in the secret way of counselling apart is easily
avoided. Fourthly, in deliberations that ought to be kept secret, whereof there be many
occasions in public business, the counsels of many, and especially in assemblies, are
dangerous; and therefore great assemblies are necessitated to commit such affairs to
lesser numbers, and of such persons as are most versed, and in whose fidelity they have
most confidence. |
|
[600] To conclude, who is
there that so far approves far approves the taking of counsel from a great assembly of
counsellors, that wisheth for, or would accept of their pains, when there is a question of
marrying his children, disposing of his lands, governing his household, or managing his
private estate, especially if there be amongst them such as wish not his prosperity? A man
that doth his business by the help of many prudent counsellors, with every one consulting
apart in his proper element, does it best; as he that useth able seconds at tennis play,
placed in their proper stations. He does next best that useth his own judgement only; as
he that has no second at all. But he that is carried up and down to his business in a
framed counsel, which cannot move but by the plurality of consenting opinions, the
execution whereof is commonly, out of envy or interest, retarded by the part dissenting,
does it worst of all, and like one that is carried to the ball, though by good players,
yet in a wheelbarrow, or other frame, heavy of itself, and retarded by the also by the
inconcurrent judgements and endeavours of them that drive it; and so much the more, as
they be more that set their hands to it; and most of all, when there is one or more
amongst them that desire to have him lose. And though it be true that many eyes see more
than one, yet it is not to be understood of many counsellors, but then only when the final
resolution is in one in one man. Otherwise, because many eyes see the same thing in
diverse lines, and are apt to look asquint towards their private benefit; they that desire
not to miss their mark, though they look about with two eyes, yet they never aim but with
one: and therefore no great popular Commonwealth was ever kept up, but either by a foreign
enemy that united them; or by the reputation of some one eminent man amongst them; or by
the secret counsel of a few; or by the mutual fear of equal factions; and not by the open
consultations of the assembly. And as for very little Commonwealths, be they popular or
monarchical, there is no human wisdom can uphold them longer than the jealousy lasteth of
their potent neighbours. |
|
[601] CHAPTER XXVI OF CIVIL
LAWS |
| How is civil law defined? |
[602] BY civil laws, I
understand the laws that men are therefore bound to observe, because they are members, not
of this or that Commonwealth in particular, but of a Commonwealth. For the knowledge of
particular laws belongeth to them that profess the study of the laws of their several
countries; but the knowledge of civil law in general, to any man. The ancient law of Rome
was called their civil law, from the word civitas, which signifies a Commonwealth: and
those countries which, having been under the Roman Empire and governed by that law, retain
still such part thereof as they think fit, call that part the civil law to distinguish it
from the rest of their own civil laws. But that is not it I intend to speak of here; my
design being not to show what is law here and there, but what is law; as Plato, Aristotle,
Cicero, and diverse others have done, without taking upon them the profession of the study
of the law. |
|
[603] And first it is
manifest that law in general is not counsel, but command; nor a command of any man to any
man, but only of him whose command is addressed to one formerly obliged to obey him. And
as for civil law, it addeth only the name of the person commanding, which is persona
civitatis, the person of the Commonwealth. |
|
[604] Which considered, I
define civil law in this manner. Civil law is to every subject those rules which the
Commonwealth hath commanded him, by word, writing, or other sufficient sign of the will,
to make use of for the distinction of right and wrong; that is to say, of that is contrary
and what is not contrary to the rule. |
|
[605] In which definition
there is nothing that is that is not at first sight evident. For every man seeth that some
laws are addressed to all the subjects in general; some to particular provinces; some to
particular vocations; and some to particular men; and are therefore laws to every of those
to whom the command is directed, and to none else. As also, that laws are the rules of
just and unjust, nothing being reputed unjust that is not contrary to some law. Likewise,
that none can make laws but the Commonwealth, because our subjection is to the
Commonwealth only; and that commands are to be signified by sufficient signs, because a
man knows not otherwise how to obey them. And therefore, whatsoever can from this
definition by necessary consequence be deduced, ought to be acknowledged for truth. Now I
deduce from it this that followeth. |
| What are the principles of law laid out? |
[606] 1. The legislator in
all Commonwealths is only the sovereign, be he one man, as in a monarchy, or one assembly
of men, as in a democracy or aristocracy. For the legislator is he that maketh the law.
And the Commonwealth only prescribes and commandeth the observation of those rules which
we call law: therefore the Commonwealth is the legislator. But the Commonwealth is no
person, nor has capacity to do anything but by the representative, that is, the sovereign;
and therefore the sovereign is the sole legislator. For the same reason, none can abrogate
a law made, but the sovereign, because a law is not abrogated but by another law that
forbiddeth it to be put in execution. |
|
[607] 2. The sovereign of a
Commonwealth, be it an assembly or one man, is not subject to the civil laws. For having
power to make and repeal laws, he may, when he pleaseth, free himself from that subjection
by repealing those laws that trouble him, and making of new; and consequently he was free
before. For he is free that can be free when he will: nor is it possible for any person to
be bound to himself, because he that can bind can release; and therefore he that is bound
to himself only is not bound. |
|
[608] 3. When long use
obtaineth the authority of a law, it is not the length of time that maketh the authority,
but the will of the sovereign signified by his silence (for silence is sometimes an
signified by his silence (for silence is sometimes an argument of consent); and it is no
longer law, than the sovereign shall be silent therein. And therefore if the sovereign
shall have a question of right grounded, not upon his present will, but upon the laws
formerly made, the length of time shall bring no prejudice to his right: but the question
shall be judged by equity. For many unjust actions and unjust sentences go uncontrolled a
longer time than any man can remember. And our lawyers account no customs law but such as
reasonable, and that evil customs are to be abolished: but the judgement of what is
reasonable, and of what is to be abolished, belonged to him that maketh the law, which is
the sovereign assembly or monarch. |
|
[609] 4. The law of nature
and the civil law contain each other and are of equal extent. For the laws of nature,
which consist in equity, justice, gratitude, and other moral virtues on these depending,
in the condition of mere nature (as I have said |