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1651
LEVIATHAN
by Thomas Hobbes
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
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.
To describe the nature of this artificial man, I will consider
First, the matter thereof, and the artificer; both which is man.
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.
Thirdly, what is a Christian Commonwealth.
Lastly, what is the Kingdom of Darkness.
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.
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.
THE FIRST PART
OF MAN
CHAPTER I
OF SENSE
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CHAPTER II
OF IMAGINATION
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CHAPTER III
OF THE CONSEQUENCE OR TRAIN OF IMAGINATIONS
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CHAPTER IV
OF SPEECH
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CHAPTER V
OF REASON AND SCIENCE
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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,
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CHAPTER VI
OF THE INTERIOR BEGINNINGS OF VOLUNTARY MOTIONS,
COMMONLY CALLED THE PASSIONS;
AND THE SPEECHES BY WHICH THEY ARE EXPRESSED
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
For appetite with an opinion of attaining is called hope.
The same, without such opinion, despair.
Aversion, with opinion of hurt from the object, fear.
The same, with hope of avoiding that hurt by resistence, courage.
Sudden courage, anger.
Constant hope, confidence of ourselves.
Constant despair, diffidence of ourselves.
Anger for great hurt done to another, when we conceive the same to
be done by injury, indignation.
Desire of good to another, benevolence, good will, charity. If to
man generally, good nature.
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.
Desire of office, or precedence, ambition: a name used also in the
worse sense, for the reason before mentioned.
Desire of things that conduce but a little to our ends, and fear
of things that are but of little hindrance, pusillanimity.
Contempt of little helps, and hindrances, magnanimity.
Magnanimity in danger of death, or wounds, valour, fortitude.
Magnanimity in the use of riches, liberality.
Pusillanimity in the same, wretchedness, miserableness, or
parsimony, as it is liked, or disliked.
Love of persons for society, kindness.
Love of persons for pleasing the sense only, natural lust.
Love of the same acquired from rumination, that is, imagination of
pleasure past, luxury.
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.
Desire by doing hurt to another to make him condemn some fact of his
own, revengefulness.
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.
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.
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.
Joy from apprehension of novelty, admiration; proper to man, because
it excites the appetite of knowing the cause.
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.
Grief, from opinion of want of power, is called dejection of mind.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The contempt of good reputation is called impudence.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This alternate succession of appetites, aversions, hopes and fears
is no less in other living creatures than in man; and therefore beasts
also deliberate.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CHAPTER VII
OF THE ENDS OR RESOLUTIONS OF DISCOURSE
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CHAPTER VIII
OF THE VIRTUES COMMONLY CALLED INTELLECTUAL;
AND THEIR CONTRARY DEFECTS
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In hortatives and pleadings, as truth or disguise serveth best to
the design in hand, so is the judgement or the fancy most required.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.* 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,"*(2)
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.*(3) 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."*(4) 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?"*(5) 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.
* Numbers, 11. 25
*(2) Exodus, 28. 3
*(3) Mark, 3. 21
*(4) John, 10. 20
*(5) II Kings, 9. 11
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?* Is not he said also
to rebuke a fever?*(2) 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;*(3) 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.
* Matthew, 8. 26
*(2) Luke, 4. 39
*(3) Matthew, 12. 43
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.
CHAPTER IX
OF THE SEVERAL SUBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE
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.
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.
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.
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
CHAPTER X
OF POWER, WORTH, DIGNITY, HONOUR AND WORTHINESS
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.
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.
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.
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.
Reputation of power is power; because it draweth with it the
adherence of those that need protection.
So is reputation of love of a man's country, called popularity,
for the same reason.
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.
Good success is power; because it maketh reputation of wisdom or
good fortune, which makes men either fear him or rely on him.
Affability of men already in power is increase of power; because
it gaineth love.
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.
Nobility is power, not in all places, but only in those
Commonwealths where it has privileges; for in such privileges
consisteth their power.
Eloquence is power; because it is seeming prudence.
Form is power; because being a promise of good, it recommendeth
men to the favour of women and strangers.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
To give way or place to another, in any commodity, is to honour;
being a confession of greater power. To arrogate is to dishonour.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
To imitate is to honour; for it is vehemently to approve. To imitate
one's enemy is to dishonour.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Honourable is whatsoever possession, action, or quality is an
argument and sign of power.
And therefore to be honoured, loved, or feared of many is
honourable, as arguments of power. To be honoured of few or none,
dishonourable.
Dominion and victory is honourable because acquired by power; and
servitude, for need or fear, is dishonourable.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CHAPTER XI
OF THE DIFFERENCE OF MANNERS
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CHAPTER XII
OF RELIGION
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The unformed matter of the world was a god by the name of Chaos.
The heaven, the ocean, the planets, the fire, the earth, the
winds, were so many gods.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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* 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.*(2) So that Miracles
failing, faith also failed.
* Exodus, 32. 1, 2
*(2) Judges, 2. 11
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.* So
that justice failing, faith also failed, insomuch as they deposed
their God from reigning over them.
* I Samuel, 8. 3
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.
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.
CHAPTER XIII
OF THE NATURAL CONDITION OF MANKIND AS
CONCERNING THEIR FELICITY AND MISERY
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of
quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CHAPTER XIV
OF THE FIRST AND SECOND NATURAL LAWS, AND OF CONTRACTS
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The mutual transferring of right is that which men call contract.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CHAPTER XV
OF OTHER LAWS OF NATURE
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CHAPTER XVI
OF PERSONS, AUTHORS, AND THINGS PERSONATED
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
CHAPTER XVII
OF THE CAUSES, GENERATION, AND DEFINITION
OF A COMMONWEALTH
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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,
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
And he that carryeth this person is called sovereign, and said to
have sovereign power; and every one besides, his subject.
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.
CHAPTER XVIII
OF THE RIGHTS OF SOVEREIGNS BY INSTITUTION
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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,
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CHAPTER XIX
OF THE SEVERAL KINDS OF COMMONWEALTH BY INSTITUTION,
AND OF SUCCESSION TO THE SOVEREIGN POWER
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CHAPTER XX
OF DOMINION PATERNAL AND DESPOTICAL
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."* 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."*(2) 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."*(3) 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."*(4) 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."*(5) For obedience of servants St. Paul saith, "Servants obey
your masters in all things";*(6) and, "Children obey your parents in
all things."*(7) 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."*(8) 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."*(9)
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."*(10) 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.
* Exodus, 20. 19
*(2) I Samuel, 8. 11-17
*(3) Ibid., 8. 19, 20
*(4) I Kings, 3. 9
*(5) I Samuel, 24. 6
*(6) Colossians, 3. 22
*(7) Ibid., 3. 20
*(8) Matthew, 23. 2, 3
*(9) Titus, 3. 1
*(10) Matthew, 21. 2, 3
To these places may be added also that of Genesis, "You shall be
as gods, knowing good and evil."* And, "Who told thee that thou wast
naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee thou
shouldest not eat?"*(2) 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.
* Genesis, 3. 5
*(2) Ibid., 3. 11
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.
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.
CHAPTER XXI
OF THE LIBERTY OF SUBJECTS
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."* 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.
* Aristotle, Politics, Bk VI
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.
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,
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CHAPTER XXII
OF SYSTEMS SUBJECT POLITICAL AND PRIVATE
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
If he come into debt by contract, or mulct, the case is the same.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."* 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.
* Acts, 19. 40
CHAPTER XXIII
OF THE PUBLIC MINISTERS OF SOVEREIGN POWER
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CHAPTER XXIV
OF THE NUTRITION AND PROCREATION OF A COMMONWEALTH
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CHAPTER XXV
OF COUNSEL
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CHAPTER XXVI
OF CIVIL LAWS
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 before in the end of the
fifteenth Chapter), are not properly laws, but qualities that
dispose men to peace and to obedience. When a Commonwealth is once
settled, then are they actually laws, and not before; as being then
the commands of the Commonwealth; and therefore also civil laws: for
it is the sovereign power that obliges men to obey them. For the
differences of private men, to declare what is equity, what is
justice, and is moral virtue, and to make them binding, there is
need of the ordinances of sovereign power, and punishments to be
ordained for such as shall break them; which ordinances are
therefore part of the civil law. The law of nature therefore is a part
of the civil law in all Commonwealths of the world. Reciprocally also,
the civil law is a part of the dictates of nature. For justice, that
is to say, performance of covenant, and giving to every man his own,
is a dictate of the law of nature. But every subject in a Commonwealth
hath covenanted to obey the civil law; either one with another, as
when they assemble to make a common representative, or with the
representative itself one by one when, subdued by the sword, they
promise obedience that they may receive life; and therefore
obedience to the civil law is part also of the law of nature. Civil
and natural law are not different kinds, but different parts of law;
whereof one part, being written, is called civil the other
unwritten, natural. But the right of nature, that is, the natural
liberty of man, may by the civil law be abridged and restrained:
nay, the end of making laws is no other but such restraint, without
which there cannot possibly be any peace. And law was brought into the
world for nothing else but to limit the natural liberty of
particular men in such manner as they might not hurt, but assist one
another, and join together against a common enemy.
5. If the sovereign of one Commonwealth subdue a people that have
lived under other written laws, and afterwards govern them by the same
laws by which they were governed before, yet those laws are the
civil laws of the victor, and not of the vanquished Commonwealth.
For the legislator is he, not by whose authority the laws were first
made, but by whose authority they now continue to be laws. And
therefore where there be diverse provinces within the dominion of a
Commonwealth, and in those provinces diversity of laws, which commonly
are called the customs of each several province, we are not to
understand that such customs have their force only from length of
time; but that they were anciently laws written, or otherwise made
known, for the constitutions and statutes of their sovereigns; and are
now laws, not by virtue of the prescription of time, but by the
constitutions of their present sovereigns. But if an unwritten law, in
all the provinces of a dominion, shall be generally observed, and no
iniquity appear in the use thereof, that law can be no other but a law
of nature, equally obliging all mankind.
6. Seeing then all laws, written and unwritten, have their authority
and force from the will of the Commonwealth; that is to say, from
the will of the representative, which in a monarchy is the monarch,
and in other Commonwealths the sovereign assembly; a man may wonder
from whence proceed such opinions as are found in the books of lawyers
of eminence in several Commonwealths, directly or by consequence
making the legislative power depend on private men or subordinate
judges. As for example, that the common law hath no controller but the
Parliament; which is true only where a parliament has the sovereign
power, and cannot be assembled nor dissolved, but by their own
discretion. For if there be a right in any else to dissolve them,
there is a right also to control them, and consequently to control
their controllings. And if there be no such right, then the controller
of laws is not parlamentum, but rex in parlamento. And where a
parliament is sovereign, if it should assemble never so many or so
wise men from the countries subject to them, for whatsoever cause, yet
there is no man will believe that such an assembly hath thereby
acquired to themselves a legislative power. Item, that the two arms of
a Commonwealth are force and justice; the first whereof is in the
king, the other deposited in the hands of the Parliament. As if a
Commonwealth could consist where the force were in any hand which
justice had not the authority to command and govern.
7. That law can never be against reason, our lawyers are agreed: and
that not the letter (that is, every construction of it), but that
which is according to the intention of the legislator, is the law. And
it is true: but the doubt is of whose reason it is that shall be
received for law. It is not meant of any private reason; for then
there would be as much contradiction in the laws as there is in the
Schools; nor yet, as Sir Edward Coke makes it, an "Artificial
perfection of reason, gotten by long study, observation, and
experience," as his was. For it is possible long study may increase
and confirm erroneous sentences: and where men build on false grounds,
the more they build, the greater is the ruin: and of those that
study and observe with equal time and diligence, the reasons and
resolutions are, and must remain, discordant: and therefore it is
not that juris prudentia, or wisdom of subordinate judges, but the
reason of this our artificial man the Commonwealth, and his command,
that maketh law: and the Commonwealth being in their representative
but one person, there cannot easily arise any contradiction in the
laws; and when there doth, the same reason is able, by
interpretation or alteration, to take it away. In all courts of
justice, the sovereign (which is the person of the Commonwealth) is he
that judgeth: the subordinate judge ought to have regard to the reason
which moved his sovereign to make such law, that his sentence may be
according thereunto, which then is his sovereigns sentence;
otherwise it is his own, and an unjust one.
8. From this, that the law is a command, and a command consisteth in
declaration or manifestation of the will of him that commandeth, by
voice, writing, or some other sufficient argument of the same, we
may understand that the command of the Commonwealth is law only to
those that have means to take notice of it. Over natural fools,
children, or madmen there is no law, no more than over brute beasts;
nor are they capable of the title of just or unjust, because they
had never power to make any covenant or to understand the consequences
thereof, and consequently never took upon them to authorize the
actions of any sovereign, as they must do that make to themselves a
Commonwealth. And as those from whom nature or accident hath taken
away the notice of all laws in general; so also every man, from whom
any accident not proceeding from his own default, hath taken away
the means to take notice of any particular law, is excused if he
observe it not; and to speak properly, that law is no law to him. It
is therefore necessary to consider in this place what arguments and
signs be sufficient for the knowledge of what is the law; that is to
say, what is the will of the sovereign, as well in monarchies as in
other forms of government.
And first, if it be a law that obliges all the subjects without
exception, and is not written, nor otherwise published in such
places as they may take notice thereof, it is a law of nature. For
whatever men are to take knowledge of for law, not upon other men's
words, but every one from his own reason, must be such as is agreeable
to the reason of all men; which no law can be, but the law of
nature. The laws of nature therefore need not any publishing nor
proclamation; as being contained in this one sentence, approved by all
the world, Do not that to another which thou thinkest unreasonable
to be done by another to thyself.
Secondly, if it be a law that obliges only some condition of men, or
one particular man, and be not written, nor published by word, then
also it is a law of nature, and known by the same arguments and
signs that distinguish those in such a condition from other
subjects. For whatsoever law is not written, or some way published
by him that makes it law, can be known no way but by the reason of him
that is to obey it; and is therefore also a law not only civil, but
natural. For example, if the sovereign employ a public minister,
without written instructions what to do, he is obliged to take for
instructions the dictates of reason: as if he make a judge, the
judge is to take notice that his sentence ought to be according to the
reason of his sovereign, which being always understood to be equity,
he is bound to it by the law of nature: or if an ambassador, he is, in
all things not contained in his written instructions, to take for
instruction that which reason dictates to be most conducing to his
sovereign's interest; and so of all other ministers of the
sovereignty, public and private. All which instructions of natural
reason may be comprehended under one name of fidelity, which is a
branch of natural justice.
The law of nature excepted, it belonged to the essence of all
other laws to be made known to every man that shall be obliged to obey
them, either by word, or writing, or some other act known to proceed
from the sovereign authority. For the will of another cannot be
understood but by his own word, or act, or by conjecture taken from
his scope and purpose; which in the person of the Commonwealth is to
be supposed always consonant to equity and reason. And in ancient
time, before letters were in common use, the laws were many times
put into verse; that the rude people, taking pleasure in singing or
reciting them, might the more easily retain them in memory. And for
the same reason Solomon adviseth a man to bind the Ten Commandments
upon his ten fingers.* And for the Law which Moses gave to the
people of Israel at the renewing of the Covenant, he biddeth them to
teach it their children, by discoursing of it both at home and upon
the way, at going to bed and at rising from bed; and to write it
upon the posts and doors of their houses;*(2) and to assemble the
people, man, woman, and child, to hear it read.*(3)
* Proverbs, 7. 3
*(2) Deuteronomy, 11. 19
*(3) Ibid., 31. 12
Nor is it enough the law be written and published, but also that
there be manifest signs that it proceedeth from the will of the
sovereign. For private men, when they have, or think they have,
force enough to secure their unjust designs, and convoy them safely to
their ambitious ends, may publish for laws what they please, without
or against the legislative authority. There is therefore requisite,
not only a declaration of the law, but also sufficient signs of the
author and authority. The author or legislator is supposed in every
Commonwealth to be evident, because he is the sovereign, who, having
been constituted by the consent of every one, is supposed by every one
to be sufficiently known. And though the ignorance and security of men
be such, for the most part, as that when the memory of the first
constitution of their Commonwealth is worn out, they do not consider
by whose power they use to be defended against their enemies, and to
have their industry protected, and to be righted when injury is done
them; yet because no man that considers can make question of it, no
excuse can be derived from the ignorance of where the sovereignty is
placed. And it is a dictate of natural reason, and consequently an
evident law of nature, that no man ought to weaken that power the
protection whereof he hath himself demanded or wittingly received
against others. Therefore of who is sovereign, no man, but by his
own fault (whatsoever evil men suggest), can make any doubt. The
difficulty cocsisteth in the evidence of the authority derived from
him; the removing whereof dependeth on the knowledge of the public
registers, public counsels, public ministers, and public seals; by
which all laws are sufficiently verified; verified, I say, not
authorized: for the verification is but the testimony and record;
not the authority of the law, which consisteth in the command of the
sovereign only.
If therefore a man have a question of injury, depending on the law
of nature; that is to say, on common equity; the sentence of the
judge, that by commission hath authority to take cognizance of such
causes, is a sufficient verification of the law of nature in that
individual case. For though the advice of one that professeth the
study of the law be useful for the avoiding of contention, yet it is
but advice: it is the judge must tell men what is law, upon the
hearing of the controversy.
But when the question is of injury, or crime, upon a written law,
every man by recourse to the registers by himself or others may, if he
will, be sufficiently informed, before he do such injury, or commit
the crime, whether it be an injury or not; nay, he ought to do so: for
when a man doubts whether the act he goeth about be just or unjust,
and may inform himself if he will, the doing is unlawful. In like
manner, he that supposeth himself injured, in a case determined by the
written law, which he may by himself or others see and consider; if he
complain before he consults with the law, he does unjustly, and
bewrayeth a disposition rather to vex other men than to demand his own
right.
If the question be of obedience to a public officer, to have seen
his commission with the public seal, and heard it read, or to have had
the means to be informed of it, if a man would, is a sufficient
verification of his authority. For every man is obliged to do his best
endeavour to inform himself of all written laws that may concern his
own future actions.
The legislator known, and the laws either by writing or by the light
of nature sufficiently published, there wanteth yet another very
material circumstance to make them obligatory. For it is not the
letter, but the intendment, or meaning; that is to say, the
authentic interpretation of the law (which is the sense of the
legislator), in which the nature of the law consisteth; and
therefore the interpretation of all laws dependeth on the authority
sovereign; and the interpreters can be none but those which the
sovereign, to whom only the subject oweth obedience, shall appoint.
For else, by the craft of an interpreter, the law may be made to
bear a sense contrary to that of the sovereign, by which means the
interpreter becomes the legislator.
All laws, written and unwritten, have need of interpretation. The
unwritten law of nature, though it be easy to such as without
partiality and passion make use of their natural reason, and therefore
leaves the violators thereof without excuse; yet considering there
be very few, perhaps none, that in some cases are not blinded by
self-love, or some other passion, it is now become of all laws the
most obscure, and has consequently the greatest need of able
interpreters. The written laws, if laws, if they be short, are
easily misinterpreted, for the diverse significations of a word or
two; if long, they be more obscure by the diverse significations of
many words: in so much as no written law, delivered in few or many
words, can be well understood without a perfect understanding of the
final causes for which the law was made; the knowledge of which
final causes is in the legislator. To him therefore there cannot be
any knot in the law insoluble, either by finding out the ends to
undo it by, or else by making what ends he will (as Alexander did with
his sword in the Gordian knot) by the legislative power; which no
other interpreter can do.
The interpretation of the laws of nature in a Commonwealth dependeth
not on the books of moral philosophy. The authority of writers,
without the authority of the Commonwealth, maketh not their opinions
law, be they never so true. That which I have written in this treatise
concerning the moral virtues, and of their necessity for the procuring
and maintaining peace, though it be evident truth, is not therefore
presently law, but because in all Commonwealths in the world it is
part of the civil law. For though it be naturally reasonable, yet it
is by the sovereign power that it is law: otherwise, it were a great
error to call the laws of nature unwritten law; whereof we see so many
volumes published, and in them so many contradictions of one another
and of themselves.
The interpretation of the law of nature is the sentence of the judge
constituted by the sovereign authority to hear and determine such
controversies as depend thereon, and consisteth in the application
of the law to the present case. For in the act of judicature the judge
doth no more but consider whether the demand of the party be consonant
to natural reason and equity; and the sentence he giveth is
therefore the interpretation of the law of nature; which
interpretation is authentic, not because it is his private sentence,
but because he giveth it by authority of the sovereign, whereby it
becomes the sovereign's sentence; which is law for that time to the
parties pleading.
But because there is no judge subordinate, nor sovereign, but may
err in a judgement equity; if afterward in another like case he find
it more consonant to equity to give a contrary sentence, he is obliged
to do it. No man's error becomes his own law, nor obliges him to
persist in it. Neither, for the same reason, becomes it a law to other
judges, though sworn to follow it. For though a wrong sentence given
by authority of the sovereign, if he know and allow it, in such laws
as are mutable, be a constitution of a new law in cases in which every
little circumstance is the same; yet in laws immutable, such as are
the laws of nature, they are no laws to the same or other judges in
the like cases for ever after. Princes succeed one another; and one
judge passeth, another cometh; nay, heaven and earth shall pass; but
not one tittle of the law of nature shall pass; for it is the
eternal law of God. Therefore all the sentences of precedent judges
that have ever been cannot all together make a law contrary to natural
equity. Nor any examples of former judges can warrant an
unreasonable sentence, or discharge the present judge of the trouble
of studying what is equity (in the case he is to judge) from the
principles of his own natural reason. For example sake, it is
against the law of nature to punish the innocent; and innocent is he
that acquitteth himself judicially and is acknowledged for innocent by
the judge. Put the case now that a man is accused of a capital
crime, and seeing the power and malice of some enemy, and the frequent
corruption and partiality of judges, runneth away for fear of the
event, and afterwards is taken and brought to a legal trial, and
maketh it sufficiently appear he was not guilty of the crime, and
being thereof acquitted is nevertheless condemned to lose his goods;
this is a manifest condemnation of the innocent. I say therefore
that there is no place in the world where this can be an
interpretation of a law of nature, or be made a law by the sentences
of precedent judges that had done the same. For he that judged it
first judged unjustly; and no injustice can be a pattern of
judgement to succeeding judges. A written law may forbid innocent
men to fly, and they may be punished for flying: but that flying for
fear of injury should be taken for presumption of guilt, after a man
is already absolved of the crime judicially, is contrary to the nature
of a presumption, which hath no place after judgement given. Yet
this is set down by a great lawyer for the common law of England:
"If a man," saith he, "that is innocent be accused of felony, and
for fear flyeth for the same; albeit he judicially acquitteth
himself of the felony; yet if it be found that he fled for the felony,
he shall, notwithstanding his innocency, forfeit all his goods,
chattels, debts, and duties. For as to the forfeiture of them, the law
will admit no proof against the presumption in law, grounded upon
his flight." Here you see an innocent man, judicially acquitted,
notwithstanding his innocency (when no written law forbade him to fly)
after his acquittal, upon a presumption in law, condemned to lose
all the goods he hath. If the law ground upon his flight a presumption
of the fact, which was capital, the sentence ought to have been
capital: the presumption were not of the fact, for what then ought
he to lose his goods? This therefore is no law of England; nor is
the condemnation grounded upon a presumption of law, but upon the
presumption of the judges. It is also against law to say that no proof
shall be admitted against a presumption of law. For all judges,
sovereign and subordinate, if they refuse to hear proof, refuse to
do justice: for though the sentence be just, yet the judges that
condemn, without hearing the proofs offered, are unjust judges; and
their presumption is but prejudice; which no man ought to bring with
him to the seat of justice whatsoever precedent judgements or examples
he shall pretend to follow. There be other things of this nature,
wherein men's judgements have been perverted by trusting to
precedents: but this is enough to show that though the sentence of the
judge be a law to the party pleading, yet it is no law any judge
that shall succeed him in that office.
In like manner, when question is of the meaning of written laws,
he is not the interpreter of them that writeth a commentary upon them.
For commentaries are commonly more subject to cavil than the text, and
therefore need other commentaries; and so there will be no end of such
interpretation. And therefore unless there be an interpreter
authorized by the sovereign, from which the subordinate judges are not
to recede, the interpreter can be no other than the ordinary judges,
in the same manner as they are in cases of the unwritten law; and
their sentences are to be taken by them that plead for laws in that
particular case, but not to bind other judges in like cases to give
like judgements. For a judge may err in the interpretation even of
written laws; but no error of a subordinate judge can change the
law, which is the general sentence of the sovereign.
In written laws men use to make a difference between the letter
and the sentence of the law: and when by the letter is meant
whatsoever can be gathered from the bare words, it is well
distinguished. For the significations of almost all are either in
themselves, or in the metaphorical use of them, ambiguous; and may
be drawn in argument to make many senses; but there is only one
sense of the law. But if by the letter be meant the literal sense,
then the letter and the sentence or intention of the law is all one.
For the literal sense is that which the legislator intended should
by the letter of the law be signified. Now the intention of the
legislator is always supposed to be equity: for it were a great
contumely for a judge to think otherwise of the sovereign. He ought
therefore, if the word of the law do not fully authorize a
reasonable sentence, to supply it with the law of nature; or if the
case be difficult, to respite judgement till he have received more
ample authority. For example, a written law ordaineth that he which is
thrust out of his house by force shall be restored by force. It
happens that a man by negligence leaves his house empty, and returning
is kept out by force, in which case there is no special law
ordained. It is evident that this case is contained in the same law;
for else there is no remedy for him at all, which is to be supposed
against the intention of the legislator. Again, the word of the law
commandeth to judge according to the evidence. A man is accused
falsely of a fact which the judge himself saw done by another, and not
by him that is accused. In this case neither shall the letter of the
law be followed to the condemnation of the innocent, nor shall the
judge give sentence against the evidence of the witnesses, because the
letter of the law is to the contrary; but procure of the sovereign
that another be made judge, and himself witness. So that the
incommodity that follows the bare words of a written law may lead
him to the intention of the law, whereby to interpret the same the
better; though no incommodity can warrant a sentence against the
law. For every judge of right and wrong is not judge of what is
commodious or incommodious to the Commonwealth.
The abilities required in a good interpreter of the law, that is
to say, in a good judge, are not the same with those of an advocate;
namely, the study of the laws. For a judge, as he ought to take notice
of the fact from none but the witnesses, so also he ought to take
notice of the law from nothing but the statutes and constitutions of
the sovereign, alleged in the pleading, or declared to him by some
that have authority from the sovereign power to declare them; and need
not take care beforehand what he shall judge; for it shall be given
him what he shall say concerning the fact, by witnesses; and what he
shall say in point of law, from those that shall in their pleadings
show it, and by authority interpret it upon the place. The Lords of
Parliament in England were judges, and most difficult causes have been
heard and determined by them; yet few of them were much versed in
the study of the laws, and fewer had made profession of them; and
though they consulted with lawyers that were appointed to be present
there for that purpose, yet they alone had the authority of giving
sentence. In like manner, in the ordinary trials of right, twelve
men of the common people are the judges and give sentence, not only of
the fact, but of the right; and pronounce simply for the complainant
or for the defendant; that is to say, are judges not only of the fact,
but also of the right; and in a question of crime, not only
determine whether done or not done, but also whether it be murder,
homicide, felony, assault, and the like, which are determinations of
law: but because they are not supposed to know the law of
themselves, there is one that hath authority to inform them of it in
the particular case they are to judge of. But yet if they judge not
according to that he tells them, they are not subject thereby to any
penalty; unless it be made appear they did it against their
consciences, or had been corrupted by reward.
The things that make a good judge or good interpreter of the laws
are, first, a right understanding of that principal law of nature
called equity; which, depending not on the reading of other men's
writings, but on the goodness of a man's own natural reason and
meditation, is presumed to be in those most that had most leisure, and
had the most inclination to meditate thereon. Secondly, contempt of
unnecessary riches and preferments. Thirdly, to be able in judgement
to divest himself of all fear, anger, hatred, love, and compassion.
Fourthly, and lastly, patience to hear, diligent attention in hearing,
and memory to retain, digest, and apply what he hath heard.
The difference and division of the laws has been made in diverse
manners, according to the different methods of those men that have
written of them. For it is a thing that dependeth on nature, but on
the scope of the writer, and is subservient to every man's proper
method. In the Institutions of Justinian, we find seven sorts of civil
laws:
1. The edicts, constitutions, and epistles of prince; that is, of
the emperor, because the whole power of the people was in him. Like
these are the proclamations of the kings of England.
2. The decrees of the whole people of Rome, comprehending the
Senate, when they were put to the question by the Senate. These were
laws, at first, by the virtue of the sovereign power residing in the
people; and such of them as by the emperors were not abrogated
remained laws by the authority imperial. For all laws that bind are
understood to be laws by his authority that has power to repeal
them. Somewhat like to these laws are the Acts of Parliament in
England.
3. The decrees of the common people, excluding the Senate, when they
were put to the question by the tribune of the people. For such of
them as were not abrogated by the emperors, remained laws by the
authority imperial. Like to these were the orders of the House of
Commons in England.
4. Senatus consulta, the orders of the Senate: because when the
people of Rome grew so numerous as it was inconvenient to assemble
them, it was thought fit by the emperor that men should consult the
Senate instead of the people: and these have some resemblance with the
Acts of Council.
5. The edicts of praetors, and in some cases of the aediles: such as
are the chief justices in the courts of England.
6. Responsa prudentum, which were the sentences and opinions of
those lawyers to whom the emperor gave authority to interpret the law,
the law, and to give answer to such as in matter of law demanded their
advice; which answers the judges in giving judgement were obliged by
the constitutions of the emperor to observe: and should be like the
reports of cases judged, if other judges be by the law of England
bound to observe them. For the judges of the common law of England are
not properly judges, but juris consulti; of whom the judges, who are
either the lords, or twelve men of the country, are in point of law to
ask advice.
7. Also, unwritten customs, which in their own nature are an
imitation of law, by the tacit consent of the emperor, in case they be
not contrary to the law of nature, are very laws.
Another division of laws is into natural and positive. Natural are
those which have been laws from all eternity, and are called not
only natural, but also moral laws, consisting in the moral virtues; as
justice, equity, and all habits of the mind that conduce to peace
and charity, of which I have already spoken in the fourteenth and
fifteenth Chapters.
Positive are those which have not been from eternity, but have
been made laws by the will of those that have had the sovereign
power over others, and are either written or made known to men by some
other argument of the will of their legislator.
Again, of positive laws some are human, some divine: and of human
positive laws, some are distributive, some penal. Distributive are
those that determine the rights of the subjects, declaring to every
man what it is by which he acquireth and holdeth a propriety in
lands or goods, and a right or liberty of action: and these speak to
all the subjects. Penal are those which declare what penalty shall
be inflicted on those that violate the law; and speak to the ministers
and officers ordained for execution. For though every one ought to
be informed of the punishments ordained beforehand for their
transgression; nevertheless the command is not addressed to the
delinquent (who cannot be supposed will faithfully punish himself),
but to public ministers appointed to see the penalty executed. And
these penal laws are for the most part written together with the
laws distributive, and are sometimes called judgements. For all laws
are general judgements, or sentences of the legislator; as also
every particular judgement is a law to him whose case is judged.
Divine positive laws (for natural laws, being eternal and universal,
are all divine) are those which, being the commandments of God, not
from all eternity, nor universally addressed to all men, but only to a
certain people or to certain persons, are declared for such by those
whom God hath authorized to declare them. But this authority of man to
declare what be these positive of God, how can it be known? God may
command a man, by a supernatural way, to deliver laws to other men.
But because it is of the essence of law that he who is to be obliged
be assured of the authority of him that declareth it, which we
cannot naturally take notice to be from God, how can a man without
supernatural revelations be assured of the revelation received by
the declarer? And how can he be bound to obey bound to obey them?
For the first question, how a man can be assured of the revelation
of another without a revelation particularly to himself, it is
evidently impossible: for though a man may be induced to believe
such revelation, from the miracles they see him do, or from seeing the
extraordinary sanctity of his life, or from seeing the extraordinary
wisdom, or extraordinary felicity of his actions, all which are
marks of God's extraordinary favour; yet they are not assured
evidences of special revelation. Miracles are marvellous works; but
that which is marvellous to one may not be so to another. Sanctity may
be feigned; and the visible felicities of this world are most often
the work of God by natural and ordinary causes. And therefore no man
can infallibly know by natural reason that another has had a
supernatural revelation of God's will but only a belief; every one, as
the signs thereof shall appear greater or lesser, a firmer or a weaker
belief.
But for the second, how he can be bound to obey them, it is not so
hard. For if the law declared be not against the law of nature,
which is undoubtedly God's law, and he undertake to obey it, he is
bound by his own act; bound I say to obey it, but not bound to believe
it: for men's belief, and interior cogitations, are not subject to the
commands, but only to the operation of God, ordinary or extraordinary.
Faith of supernatural law is not a fulfilling, but only an assenting
to the same; and not a duty that we exhibit to God, but a gift which
God freely giveth to whom He pleaseth; as also unbelief is not a
breach of any of His laws, but a rejection of them all, except the
laws natural. But this that I say will be made yet clearer by, the
examples and testimonies concerning this point in Holy Scripture.
The covenant God made with Abraham in a supernatural manner was
thus, "This is the covenant which thou shalt observe between me and
thee and thy seed after thee."* Abraham's seed had not this
revelation, nor were yet in being; yet they are a party to the
covenant, and bound to obey what Abraham should declare to them for
God's law; which they could not be but in virtue of the obedience they
owed to their parents, who (if they be subject to no other earthly
power, as here in the case of Abraham) have sovereign power over their
children and servants. Again, where God saith to Abraham, "In thee
shall all nations of the earth be blessed: for I know thou wilt
command thy children and thy house after thee to keep the way of the
Lord, and to observe righteousness and judgement," it is manifest
the obedience of his family, who had no revelation, depended on
their former obligation to obey their sovereign. At Mount Sinai
Moses only went up to God; the people were forbidden to approach on
pain of death; yet were they bound to obey all that Moses declared
to them for God's law. Upon what ground, but on this submission of
their own, "Speak thou to us, and we will hear thee; but let not God
speak to us, lest we die"? By which two places it sufficiently
appeareth that in a Commonwealth a subject that has no certain and
assured revelation particularly to himself concerning the will of
God is to obey for such the command of the Commonwealth: for if men
were at liberty to take for God's commandments their own dreams and
fancies, or the dreams and fancies of private men, scarce two men
would agree upon what is God's commandment; and yet in respect of them
every man would despise the commandments of the Commonwealth. I
conclude, therefore, that in all things not contrary to the moral
law (that is to say, to the law of nature), all subjects are bound
to obey that for divine law which is declared to be so by the laws
of the Commonwealth. Which also is evident to any man's reason; for
whatsoever is not against the law of nature may be made law in the
name of them that have the sovereign power; there is no reason men
should be the less obliged by it when it is propounded in the name
of God. Besides, there is no place in the world where men are
permitted to pretend other commandments of God than are declared for
such by the Commonwealth. Christian states punish those that revolt
from Christian religion; and all other states, those that set up any
religion by them forbidden. For in whatsoever is not regulated by
the Commonwealth, it is equity (which is the law of nature, and
therefore an eternal law of God) that every man equally enjoy his
liberty.
* Genesis, 17. 10
There is also another distinction of laws into fundamental and not
fundamental: but I could never see in any author what a fundamental
law signifieth. Nevertheless one may very reasonably distinguish
laws in that manner.
For a fundamental law in every Commonwealth is that which, being
taken away, the Commonwealth faileth and is utterly dissolved, as a
building whose foundation is destroyed. And therefore a fundamental
law is that by which subjects are bound to uphold whatsoever power
is given to the sovereign, whether a monarch or a sovereign
assembly, without which the Commonwealth cannot stand; such as is
the power of war and peace, of judicature, of election of officers,
and of doing whatsoever he shall think necessary for the public
good. Not fundamental is that, the abrogating whereof draweth not with
it the dissolution of the Commonwealth; such as are the laws
concerning controversies between subject and subject. Thus much of the
division of laws.
I find the words lex civilis and jus civile, that is to say, and law
and right civil, promiscuously used for the same thing, even in the
most learned authors; which nevertheless ought not to be so. For right
is liberty, namely that liberty which the civil law leaves us: but
civil law is an obligation, and takes from us the liberty which the
law of nature gave us. Nature gave a right to every man to secure
himself by his own strength, and to invade a suspected neighbour by
way of prevention: but the civil law takes away that liberty, in all
cases where the protection of the law may be safely stayed for.
Insomuch as lex and jus are as different as obligation and liberty.
Likewise laws and charters are taken promiscuously for the same
thing. Yet charters are donations of the sovereign; and not laws,
but exemptions from law. The phrase of a law is jubeo, injungo; I
command and enjoin: the phrase of a charter is dedi, concessi; I
have given, I have granted: but what is given or granted to a man is
not forced upon him by a law. A law may be made to bind all the
subjects of a Commonwealth: a liberty or charter is only to one man or
some one part of the people. For to say all the people of a
Commonwealth have liberty in any case whatsoever is to say that, in
such case, there hath been no law made; or else, having been made,
is now abrogated.
CHAPTER XXVII
OF CRIMES, EXCUSES, AND EXTENUATIONS
A sin is not only a transgression of a law, but also any contempt of
the legislator. For such contempt is a breach of all his laws at once,
and therefore may consist, not only in the commission of a fact, or in
the speaking of words by the laws forbidden, or in the omission of
what the law commandeth, but also in the intention or purpose to
transgress. For the purpose to break the law is some degree of
contempt of him to whom it belonged to see it executed. To be
delighted in the imagination only of being possessed of another
man's goods, servants, or wife, without any intention to take them
from him by force or fraud, is no breach of the law, that saith, "Thou
shalt not covet": nor is the pleasure a man may have in imagining or
dreaming of the death of him from whose life he expecteth nothing
but damage and displeasure, a sin; but the resolving to put some act
in execution that tendeth thereto. For to be pleased in the fiction of
that which would please a man if it were real is a passion so adherent
to the nature both of man and every other living creature, as to
make it a sin were to make sin of being a man. Th consideration of
this has made me think them too severe, both to themselves and others,
that maintain that the first motions of the mind, though checked
with the fear of God, be sins. But I confess it is safer to err on
that hand than on the other.
A crime is a sin consisting in the committing by deed or word of
that which the law forbiddeth, or the omission of what it hath
commanded. So that every crime is a sin; but not every sin a crime. To
intend to steal or kill is a sin, though it never appear in word or
fact: for God that seeth the thought of man can lay it to his
charge: but till it appear by something done, or said, by which the
intention may be argued by a human judge, it hath not the name of
crime: which distinction the Greeks observed in the word amartema
and egklema or aitia; whereof the former (which is translated sin)
signifieth any swerving from the law whatsoever; but the two latter
(which are translated crime) signify that sin only whereof one man may
accuse another. But of intentions, which never appear by any outward
act, there is no place for human accusation. In like manner the Latins
by peccatum, which is sin, signify all manner of deviation from the
law; but by crimen (which word they derive from cerno, which signifies
to perceive) they mean only such sins as may be made appear before a
judge, and therefore are not mere intentions.
From this relation of sin to the law, and of crime to the civil law,
may be inferred, first, that where law ceaseth, sin ceaseth. But
because the law of nature is eternal, violation of covenants,
ingratitude, arrogance, and all facts contrary to any moral virtue can
never cease to be sin. Secondly, that the civil law ceasing, crimes
cease: for there being no other law remaining but that of nature,
there is no place for accusation; every man being his own judge, and
accused only by his own conscience, and cleared by the uprightness
of his own intention. When therefore his intention is right, his
fact is no sin; if otherwise, his fact is sin, but not crime. Thirdly,
that when the sovereign power ceaseth, crime also ceaseth: for where
there is no such power, there is no protection to be had from the law;
and therefore every one may protect himself by his own power: for no
man in the institution of sovereign power can be supposed to give away
the right of preserving his own body, for the safety whereof all
sovereignty was ordained. But this is to be understood only of those
that have not themselves contributed to the taking away of the power
that protected them: for that was a crime from the beginning.
The source of every crime is some defect of the understanding, or
some error in reasoning, or some sudden force of the passions.
Defect in the understanding is ignorance; in reasoning, erroneous
opinion. Again, ignorance is of three sorts; of the law, and of the
sovereign, and of the penalty. Ignorance of the law of nature excuseth
no man, because every man that hath attained to the use of reason is
supposed to know he ought not to do to another what he would not
have done to himself. Therefore into what place soever a man shall
come, if he do anything contrary to that law, it is a crime. If a
man come from the Indies hither, and persuade men here to receive a
new religion, or teach them anything that tendeth to disobedience of
the laws of this country, though he be never so well persuaded of
the truth of what he teacheth, he commits a crime, and may be justly
punished for the same, not only because his doctrine is false, but
also because he does that which he would not approve in another;
namely, that coming from hence, he should endeavour to alter the
religion there. But ignorance of the civil law shall excuse a man in a
strange country till it be declared to him, because till then no civil
law is binding.
In the like manner, if the civil law of a man's own country be not
so sufficiently declared as he may know it if he will; nor the
action against the law of nature; the ignorance is a good excuse: in
other cases ignorance of the civil law excuseth not.
Ignorance of the sovereign power the place of a man's ordinary
residence excuseth him not, because he ought to take notice of the
power by which he hath been protected there.
Ignorance of the penalty, where the law is declared, excuseth no
man: for in breaking the law, which without a fear of penalty to
follow were not a law, but vain words, he undergoeth the penalty,
though he know not what it is; because whosoever voluntarily doth
any action, accepteth all the known consequences of it; but punishment
is a known consequence of the violation of the laws in every
Commonwealth; which punishment, if it be determined already by the
law, he is subject to that; if not, then is he subject to arbitrary
punishment. For it is reason that he which does injury, without
other limitation than that of his own will, should suffer punishment
without other limitation than that of his will whose law is thereby
violated.
But when a penalty is either annexed to the crime in the law itself,
or hath been usually inflicted in the like cases, there the delinquent
is excused from a greater penalty. For the punishment foreknown, if
not great enough to deter men from the action, is an invitement to it:
because when men compare the benefit of their injustice with the
harm of their punishment, by necessity of nature they choose that
which appeareth best for themselves: and therefore when they are
punished more than the law had formerly determined, or more than
others were punished for the same crime, it is the law that tempted
and deceiveth them.
No law made after a fact done can make it a crime: because if the
fact be against the law of nature, the law was before the fact; and
a positive law cannot be taken notice of before it be made, and
therefore cannot be obligatory. But when the law that forbiddeth a
fact is made before the fact be done, yet he that doth the fact is
liable to the penalty ordained after, in case no lesser penalty were
made known before, neither by writing nor by example, for the reason
immediately before alleged.
From defect in reasoning (that is to say, from error), men are prone
to violate the laws three ways. First, by presumption of false
principles: as when men, from having observed how in all places and in
all ages unjust actions have been authorised by the force and
victories of those who have committed them; and that, potent men
breaking through the cobweb laws of their country, the weaker sort and
those that have failed in their enterprises have been esteemed the
only criminals; have thereupon taken for principles and grounds of
their reasoning that justice is but a vain word: that whatsoever a man
can get by his own industry and hazard is his own: that the practice
of all nations cannot be unjust: that examples of former times are
good arguments of doing the like again; and many more of that kind:
which being granted, no act in itself can be a crime, but must be made
so, not by the law, but by the success of them that commit it; and the
same fact be virtuous or vicious fortune pleaseth; so that what Marius
makes a crime, Sylla shall make meritorious, and Caesar (the same laws
standing) turn again into a crime, to the perpetual disturbance of the
peace of the Commonwealth.
Secondly, by false teachers that either misinterpret the law of
nature, making it thereby repugnant to the law civil, or by teaching
for laws such doctrines of their own, or traditions of former times,
as are inconsistent with the duty of a subject.
Thirdly, by erroneous inferences from true principles; which happens
commonly to men that are hasty and precipitate in concluding and
resolving what to do; such as are they that have both a great
opinion of their own understanding and believe that things of this
nature require not time and study, but only common experience and a
good natural wit, whereof no man thinks himself unprovided: whereas
the knowledge of right and wrong, which is no less difficult, there is
no man will pretend to without great and long study. And of those
defects in reasoning, there is none that can excuse, though some of
them may extenuate, a crime in any man that pretendeth to the
administration of his own private business; much less in them that
undertake a public charge, because they pretend to the reason upon the
want whereof they would ground their excuse.
Of the passions that most frequently are the causes of crime, one is
vainglory, or a foolish overrating of their own worth; as if
difference of worth were an effect of their wit, or riches, or
blood, or some other natural quality, not depending on the will of
those that have the sovereign authority. From whence proceedeth a
presumption that the punishments ordained by the laws, and extended
generally to all subjects, ought not to be inflicted on them with
the same rigor they are inflicted on poor, obscure, and simple men,
comprehended under the name of the vulgar.
Therefore it happeneth commonly that such as value themselves by the
greatness of their wealth adventure on crimes, upon hope of escaping
punishment by corrupting public justice, or obtaining pardon by
money or other rewards.
And that such as have multitude of potent kindred, and popular men
that have gained reputation amongst the multitude, take courage to
violate the laws from a hope of oppressing the power to whom it
belonged to put them in execution.
And that such as have a great and false opinion of their own
wisdom take upon them to reprehend the actions and call in question
the authority of them that govern, and so to unsettle the laws with
their public discourse, as that nothing shall be a crime but what
their own designs require should be so. It happeneth also to the
same men to be prone to all such crimes as consist in craft, and in
deceiving of their neighbours; because they think their designs are
too subtle to be perceived. These I say are effects of a false
presumption of their own wisdom. For of them that are the first movers
in the disturbance of Commonwealth (which can never happen without a
civil war), very few are left alive long enough to see their new
designs established: so that the benefit of their crimes redoundeth to
posterity and such as would least have wished it: which argues they
were not so wise as they thought they were. And those that deceive
upon hope of not being observed do commonly deceive themselves, the
darkness in which they believe they lie hidden being nothing else
but their own blindness, and are no wiser than children that think all
hid by hiding their own eyes.
And generally all vainglorious men, unless they be withal
timorous, are subject to anger; as being more prone than others to
interpret for contempt the ordinary liberty of conversation: and there
are few crimes that may not be produced by anger.
As for the passions, of hate, lust, ambition, and covetousness, what
crimes they are apt to produce is so obvious to every man's experience
and understanding as there needeth nothing to be said of them,
saving that they are infirmities, so annexed to the nature, both of
man and all other living creatures, as that their effects cannot be
hindered but by extraordinary use of reason, or a constant severity in
punishing them. For in those things men hate, they find a continual
and unavoidable molestation; whereby either a man's patience must be
everlasting, or he
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