rationaliter but naturaliter Mr. Hobbs makes Appetitus rationalis to be the Will too 19. Aristotle l. 3. c. 3. Eth. makes the Will the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be that principle What is the Will the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the authority of Aristotle in creatures void of reason or beginning in him who does not ignorantly those singular things in which any action consists And that therefore Children and other creatures void of reason and understanding have will and do things spontaneously 20. Counsel in cap. 4. 6. lib. 3. Eth. he makes to be neither Cupiditas Ira Voluntas or any Opinion Voluntas he makes to be of the last or end of Counsel and Counsel to be of those things which may be done by us What is the Voluntas Will or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the authority of Aristotle as a man wills to be well he takes counsel how to attain to health And he is a fool that takes counsel of those things he cannot do Yet a man may will things which cannot be as to be immortal or those things which he cannot do as if a man would have a Player or Wrastler stronger then himself to depart But this Definition if it be any is so perplext and confused as it is not possible a man should definitely understand any thing by it For if the Will be the end or termination of Counsel then all those actions which do not proceed from Counsel are not voluntary But he makes the Will to be of those things of which we cannot take Counsel So that he does not only confound Appetitus Cupiditas Voluntas but makes Voluntas to be contrary to its self 21. The Will is that Faculty Empire or Dominion of the Soul What is the Will which does not ignorantly imperate or forbid any action or motion which is not natural I say not ignorantly for those actions which oppress men by disordered dreams or by the Incubus or as we say the Night-mare are not acts of the will Nor must they be natural as is the Systole and Diastole of the Heart and Blood or of the Brain which is natural and not in our power to alter But though the Will cannot forbid the Brain or Phantasie from working yet can it imperate the Phantasie what things it shall phancie or meditate 22. In every action three things are to be considered viz. the internum Another definition of the will movens the externum agens and the end or ratio finalis of the action The internum movens is the will the prime and efficient cause the externum movens the mean or instrumental cause the ratio finalis or end for which such an action is done is that which discerns the action to be good or bad just or unjust If the end of the action be to attain any thing which the understanding or reason dictates then is such an action the act of the mind which is proper only to intellectual and reasonable Creatures If it be to attain something desired or feared and for which no reason can be given then is it common to all living Creatures as well as Man 23. Or thirdly the Will is that faculty of the soule which does elect Another definition of the will or reject the doing of things appearing just or unjust desired or not desired prudent or imprudent So that voluntas is one thing and appetitus or cupiditas is another thing and so velle is one thing and intelligere another For By Appetitus I mean all sensual desires of self-love lust revenge c. appetitus or cupiditas are natural and not in the power of the will but the doing or not doing of any thing to the attaining of things coveted or desired is in the power of the will and so many Men do understand many things to be good for them who do nothing to the attaining of them viz. many Men are sapient not prudent Thus we see that all Men do understand and desire happiness but all Men do not will viz. do things in order to the attaining of happiness 24. Or lastly I am content with Aristotles definition of the will Eth. 3. A fourth definition cap. 4. 6. That it is the ultimate resolution end or determination of counsel but it is not only so but the ultimate resolution of those acts ends or determinations of passions irascible concupiscible or fearful of Creatures not mad but knowingly doing them The natural passions therefore of concupiscence appetite anger or fear are no sins because it is not in the power of Man to avoid them but the assenting to them either by complacency of cogitation or by determining or resolving to do any thing in order thereunto is a sin and this the Poet by the help of humane nature only saw Nam scelus intra se tacitum qui cogitat ullum Juv. Sat. 14. Facti crimen habet 25. The Council of a Prince are divided and propound several things The will in reasonable Creatures illustrated by an example to him the Prince who is the will assents to or elects the advice of one part and rejects the other the passions or affections to propound such a thing to the will to be done or not done because desired or feared the understanding and reason judges the doing or not doing such a thing to be unreasonable or unjust Here a Man may see the understanding the appetite and fear but not the will until something be assented to as understood to be good or bad or desired as pleasant or profitable or feared So that the reason and understanding is one thing and the affections and fears other things and the will different from them all 26. The internum movens being the will in all actions not natural nor Creatures irrational have a will ignorant all those outward actions of all Creatures must necessarily proceed from the will or internum movens in them 27. Not onely appetitus but sensus are patient and natural in all Creatures Appetitus sensualis is not the Will in Creatures irrational if therefore appetitus sensualis be the will in irrational Creatures then could not these Creatures do any thing but first moved thereunto by their sensual appetite but the contrary hereof every man sees Trajan had a Horse given him in Persia who at first sight of the Emperor fell upon his knees It is almost incredible those things which Banks his Horse did and yet none of them from any sensual appetite Thus we see all irrational Creatures may be taught and habituated to those things which naturally they have no appetite unto nor moved by any outward object As Horses are ridden and learned to amble whereas naturally all four-footed Creatures trot yet have they naturally no appetite thereunto nor moved by any outward object but on the contrary are averse from them 28. Creatures void of Understanding and Reason have these two Irrational Creatures
creature until they become united into some place apted and disposed for production where from the benign influence of the Sun or celestial bodies as from a more universal and efficient cause they evade into living creatures Nor does this hold less true in the production or generation of all rational Science for the Reason by it self without matter cannot form dispose or define any thing Nor does the outward sense or memory apprehend things otherwise then as seen c. or remembred not as formed disposed or defined so as to be the subject of a Proposition Since therefore the Reason cannot prepare apt or define unless the Memory or outward senses supply matter nor the Memory without the Reason dispose prepare or define any thing so as to be the subject of a Proposition it does necessarily follow that the Reason united or conjoined with the Memory does prepare the subject of every Scientifical Proposition But in every Scientifical Proposition there must be a Predicate which comprehending the Subject must be understood The Understanding therefore is the prime and efficient cause of all rational Science and the Reason is the formal cause which does dispose and prepare the matter in the Senses or Memory to be comprehended judged or discerned by the Understanding And by consequence the Reason and Memory or Senses are but the Instruments by which the Understanding does generate and produce Science 63. Only Man can rightly infer and deduce particular Conclusions Why only Man is a reasonable creature from universal Causes and can direct his actions conformable to things in his understanding and not to his appetite and senses which is common to all living creatures as well as man only Man therefore is a rational creature 64. All men naturally desire to know And though by Aristotles judgment By what means men attain to Science all Science is begotten from preexistent Knowledge which from things granted does demonstrate the Conclusions yet must there be some manner and method which men must use by which others as well as themselves may understand this or that thing to be a Science or scientifical Conclusion Men therfore must propose that method which Euclid observes or all their science will be equivocal and obscure viz. First to define all those things of which his science is compounded in such terms that every singular or individual may be so comprehended that it may be wholly with all the parts of it contained in the definition excluding every thing else For if a man define a thing so that there be any so much as equivocation in it as that it does not signifie this only thus desined but may something else then of necessity must all the Science that bears a part of this definition be equivocal and uncertain And as the definition must not be equivocal to signifie more then the thing defined another thing as well as this so neither must it signifie less viz. any part of the thing defined for the thing for then all in which this thing is a part will be infinitely deficient and imperfect Secondly After the definitions I require such things as no ingenuous man will deny As that I may adde divide multiply convert c. these things thus defined Thirdly I set down those Axioms Principles Effata Pronuntiata Common Notions or Indemonstrable Propositions which are the first causes of the Science and do demonstrate all the Conclusions of it but in themselves are indemonstrable and for which no reason can be given but only the good will and pleasure of him that made them so And these Principles must be granted before any man can by his Reason produce any Conclusion And if a man denies these Principles all Argumentation is at an end for Contra negantem principia non est disputandum And no mans Reason can work upon nothing nor prove nor find out any thing before something be first granted by which a man may prove it or find it out 65. I have known and know many men who have vast memories Why some men are more phantastical then others and very strong phantasies who notwithstanding have been as unreasonable as any and would never admit of any discourse of any thing they fancied to themselves but upon a very slender opposition would fall into passion And the reason is because they phancie things only because they please them and do not understand them as true And if any man shews such a man some Consequence which will not follow from what he phancies or that it is inconsistible with some known universal Truth then does he seek to supply with passion what he wants in reason because he is crossed in what he desires should be true Whereas men who understand or desire to understand their Thesis or Notion not only take pleasure that nothing can be inferred from it which is false and that it is not inconsistible with any thing true whatsoever but will be so far from falling into passion with any man that opposes it that they would thank any man and take him for their friend that can shew them wherein what they suppose to be universally true is not or that it is inconsistible with something which they suppose to be universally true The Spirit of God says He is a fool that rages and is confident These light phantastical men who will phancie things for truth not because they are so but because they would have them so do not only rage when they are convinced that those things they phancie for truth are made to appear either but verisimilitudes or falshoods but will take them for illwillers who convince them and continue as confident in their foolish apprehensions as before 66. As the levity of the Phantasie which is always in agitation apprehending Why some men are more dull then others things without Reason is the cause why men too suddenly apprehend Verisimilitudes for Truth so the want of Phantasie is the cause why many men of vast memories very slowly apprehend the cause of any thing Where the Phantasie is too light there men apprehend or believe every thing for Truth they affect or desire and are soon perswaded to any thing they are not wilfully prejudiced to Where it is crass and dull and moves slowly or as we say where men are endued pingui Minerva there men are hardly moved to understand any thing 67. Sensible Knowledge is the retaining the Idea of things in the What is Sensible Knowledge memory which before were in the outward senses And there being neither Reason nor Understanding to the attaining of this Knowledge it is common to other Creatures as well as Man The Ox knows his owner and the Ass his masters crib says our Saviour 68. But all Causes from whence men do infer and discourse are not Of Argumentation à Posteriori so perspicuous as are the Axiomes in Geometry or the Laws of God and a mans Country But some Causes are known to Nature and
from the company of Tamar whenas he hated her because he had abused her but it was in Joseph that he refused to accompany his Mistress whenas he might have securely enjoyed her Nor is it any virtue for any man to do or forbear any thing for feare of punishment for so horses dogs and other irrational creatures will do or not do many things for feare of stripes which are commanded or forbidden by their Masters Nor is it any virtue in a Judg to pronounce true judgment if he be hired thereunto by any reward or bribe Where therefore neither worldly pleasure profit love feare hate nor any sublunary thing but it may be loss to all these do not move a man to the doing or not doing of what in conscience he ought to do or forbear there nothing less then Gods grace and power in such a man can be the true and efficient cause of such an action 6. It is a most admirable thing to consider how notwithstanding all Why only Man can do virtuous Actions the various natures dispositions and events of things this one Providence foresees and provides for all created things in the whole universe until she brings them all to their designed end Nor does this providence foresee and provide for all things from an eternal and fatal decree impelling all actions of all creatures For then there could be no such thing as good or bad men but God were the efficient cause of vice as well as virtue in men but by a mean foresight or knowledg does often determin necessary effects from contingent causes Which does not only plainly appear from very many places of Scripture as that the men of Keilah would have delivered David if he 1 Sam. 23. 12. had not escaped thence that God would have destroyed Niniveh within forty daies if the men had not repented that God would have gathered the children of Jerusalem together as a Hen gathereth her Chickens but Matth. 23. 27. they would not that if the mighty works had been done in Tire and Sidon which were done in Chorazin they had repented in dust and ashes c. Matth. 11. 21. but also all Gods promises and cursings upon men do depend upon their obedience or disobedience to what he commands And however this rigid opinion of Fate and the eternal determination of all things be asserted by the Stoicks yet do not I think that the most wicked man that ever was did ever attribute any wicked action to any such cause but pretended conscience pleasure profit or his own will never Gods It is true indeed that God hath made man in flesh and blood and so prone to desire many things which he ought not But though diverse men do naturally affect and desire things they ought not yet God hath so made every man a free Lord of all his actions that there is no man but may chuse whether he will do or not any thing to the attaining of his appetitions and affections And mans excellency above other creatures consists in this that his actions are not determined by his objects as other creatures are but he may freely do this action as it is moved in him from the appetition of pleasure profit pride c. or abstain from it as he apprehends it forbidden by him who may forbid And so may any man freely do or endeavor to do any thing which he ought to do though to his temporal disadvantage but this having no Temporal motive must proceed from Gods grace which no creature upon earth can do but only man only man therefore can do virtuous actions CHAP. III. Of Judgment 1. JUdgment is the definitive of him who by right commands permits What is Judgment or forbids a thing either by himself or instrument whether any thing be done conformable to a Law commanding permitting or forbidding it 2. Herein judgment differs from a Law A Law is the declared will of How it differs from a Law him who by right commands permits or forbids a thing together with a penalty annext for not observance after some reasonable time fixt whereby the obliged may take notice of such declaration Judgment is the sencence of him who so commands forbids or permits whether such an act were an omission or transgression of any Law so declared 3. Justice is the upright doing of any just or legal action conformable to the Law of him who by right commands Judgment is the discerning of How Judgment differs from Justice a good or bad action 4. All judgment must necessarily be the act of three persons at least What persons are necessary in Judgment viz. the Judge the accuser and the party accused or as we say the Judge the Plaintiff and Defendant 5. The end or ratio finalis of Judgment is either to determine differences The end of Judgment or punish offenders CHAP. IV. Of Equity 1. EQuity is twofold either a remission or moderation of the Laws How manifold is Equity when the execution of Laws will rather kill then cure a distemper in the Subject as when many Subjects either upon passion or being seduced have so far transgressed Laws that they have forfeited by Law their lives and estates yet in such case are not supream powers rigidly to exact all which the Law gives them but it is equity so to punish the principal Authors and other Subjects that others may be deterred from the like and the generality offending preserved So where the Law commands upon penalty and it becomes impossible for the Subject to perform as it ever was and will be there it is equity to remit the penalty Where therefore the Law obliges a Tenant to pay his Landlord such a Rent yet if by inundation of waters sterility of the season c. it comes to pass that the Tenant by no fault of his either cannot or it will be the ruine of himself and family to pay it there it is equity in the Landlord to remit or moderate what by Law he might justly exact Or secondly a supplement of the Law in cases wherein things in conscience ought to be done yet for want of some formalities or niceties they cannot in strictness of Law be exacted 2. Equity is when with a sincere intention men although it be to How Equity differs from Judgment their prejudice endeavor to please God Judgment a giving sentence according to Laws 3. In Courts of Judicature the Judges proceed according to the declared The necessity of Courts of Equity Laws and ought not in judgment to vary or swerve from them but proceed as they are impowred by Law and their Commission and Laws are made usually ad terrorem rather to affright men then to punish all offenders which Laws were they not moderated it were impossible for all men to subsist under the burden of them nor is there any man but has need of Gods mercy and the Kings Courts of Equity therefore are as necessary
are the English and Scottish And also since the corruption of the best thing is worst it will not be amiss before we conclude this Chapter and Book to discourse this Probleme whether upon all occasions it be the only and necessary way to cure all distempers of State by a full convention in Parliament according to the usuall constitution And first we will see what may be said for it That the passing of Lawes in Parliament where the major part of the Object 1 Freeholders are represented creates and begets a right understanding between the King and his Subjects that it is not the intention of the Prince to alter the old Lawes and introduce new ones to their prejudice To this I subscribe That when Lawes are so passed it confirmes and strengthens the Prince both by the person and purse of his Subjects in any designe he shall undertake because the representatives of the Freeholders consent unto it To this I subscribe That Parliaments have been of that antiquity and the Nation so habituated to them that it will never long be governed peaceably without them To this I subscribe That the grievances of the Nation can never be so well represented and redressed as in Parliament where the major part of the Freeholders are represented To this I subscribe That men will lesse dare to abuse their Prince or Country by any sinister or indirect means when Parliaments are frequent and free To this I subscribe The frequent use of Parliaments takes away all strangenesse between the King and his Subjects and begets a confidence and right understanding between them To this I subscribe That since it is necessary that every Prince in governing must necessarily ultimately resolve his confidence into something besides the Lawes to which upon all occasions he may betake himself for the Execution and defence of himself and Subjects and this must be by a constant Army in pay of his Subjects according to the institution of the Roman Legions or out of a diffidence of his own Subjects or from some reason of state trust the protection of his Person and Lawes into the hands of Foreigners as did the Kings of Aegypt before Sclymus conquered them or as the King of France now does in the hands of Switz and Scots or he must betake himself to the protection of a mercinary Army made up of his Subjects and Foreiners as the Turks Janizaries and Spahi are or establish his security and refuge up-the affection of his subjects and intrust them with the Militia in such manner as hath beene used heretofore in England and that this agrees better with the nature and constitution of English-men then any of the other as being established as well by common-Law as many Acts of Parliament To this I subscribe To these may be added that Tacitus in the life of Agricola makes it one great cause of the Romans conquering our Ancestors That they consulted not in common Nec aliud adversus validissimas Gentes pro nobis utilius quam quod in commune non consultant Rarus ad Propulsandum commune periculum conventus It a dum singuli pugnant aniversi vincuntur Quaere Yet quaere whether Rising-Chase in Norfolke and old Sarum in Wilts where are no Inhabitants but a few meane Tenants sending twice the numbers to the Parliament with the county of Yorke and whether the County and City of Durham sending none at all and whether Cornwall's sending ten times as many as either Warwick-shire or Leicestershire and yet eyther of them bigger and far more rich Counties Or whether Cities and Boroughs not only sending a like number of Citizens and Burgesses with the County having alike Vote with them of the County be an equall representative of the Freeholders Or whether the waies used in the Elections doe not animate the Electors and those that stand in Competition against one another and that to such a height That many of the Electors and those who stand are never after reconciled Answer It is true indeed that if God had determined all things in this inferior Orbe without any variation and that this thing were alwaies to be attained only by some one means that this in governing were by councell in Parliament then could there be neither reason or discourse upon variation and alteration of things and no difference betweene the wisest of Princes and the most foolish but this is so far from truth that there is nothing sublunary not only variable but doth vary every moment neither is there any thing in Reason Physick or State alike to all men nay in all of them the same thing may be at one time good and profitable at another time bad and hurtfull What man sees not that in health nature is not repaired by any man without a proportionable measure of diet which when he is indisposed may surcharge nature to the overthrow of it in him Strong physick may be proper to a man at one time and kill him at another Parliaments although ordinarily are the Kings surest refuge yet by how much they are more excellent by so much the worse are they corrupted Times are and will be bad when they are not made so by any cause in the Prince and so bad that in such conjuncture it may prove the utmost evill if the Houses or eyther of them shall assume the title of Parliament or give head to such Factions and distempers And no question when the Scots invaded England in 1640 it was unsafe Councell that advised the King to summon a Parliament and worst of all to convene it at London as things then stood For that saying of Tacitus it is rather Rhetoricall and makes against the Antiquity of Parliaments then any way proves necessity of them upon all occasions unless he could make consulere and pugnare the same thing nor could Agricola ever have obteined such victory against our Ancestors if he had fought with no more then had councelled him Epilogue WHen I looke back and consider the unstable condition of mankinde especially among Islanders and that often times the fate of good religious and just men is in this World more calamitous then of bad and vicious men I did then conclude with my self that Religion Justice and Piety cannot of themselves procure peace and society to mankind nay what is yet more lamentable that first sublunary cause from whence all Subjects derive and expect their protection is more subject to calamity then the condition of the meanest of mortall men Let a man take a survey of all the Kings in Britain since there were any Records of time and see whether neer one halfe of them did attain a naturall death nor is this confined within the Seas which encompass our Isle or a new thing in other parts of the world for Adgenerum Cereris sine caede sanguine pauci Juvenal Sat. 10. Descendunt Reges I shall therefore before I conclude endeavour to shew whether any peace and happinesse may be reasonably
Nor was that less abhorrent to me which men in this factious age beg for a Principle viz. That all men by Nature or the Law of Nature are in a like equal condition and that the Laws of Nature are eternal and immutable even by God himself And yet by a continued violence upon these eternal and immutable Laws men should every where in the world live in Society or in the mutual offices of commanding and obeying Yet did not I so confidently resolve these things as to exclude what I could argue against them I therefore did suppose in my self a company of such men as were in a parity of condition yet could I never conceive it possible that ever any Civitas or Supreme power could be derived or created by them For either this Civitas must be superior to the Cives or People that made it or not If it were not superior to it then could it not govern or rule them for dominion is always placed in the superior part If superior to it then was the Creature or Instrument superior to the Cause and Creator which is most absurd Nor was it to me less monstrous to imagine that any thing could give or transfer that to another which it self hath not but this people or multitude who should make this civitas had neither Jus vitae or necis nor Property seperately nor conjunctly they could not therefore endue another with that power which none of them nor all of them together had and without which there can be no supream power which may protect and defend Subjects But I did not insist onely upon this but supposed that the cives could make a civitas which should be superior to them and endew it with a power which none of them nor all of them had yet was I no less perplexed then before who these cives which should make this civil Pact should be and who should be subject to it If onely those be the cives who made this civitas and they onely subject to it then were Women and Children who were none of the cives that made this civitas free and independent from it Nor could all the people or multitude of both Sexes and all Ages in such an imaginary state be the cives which must constitute this civitas by virtue of the civil Pact For many must necessarily be so yong as not being compotes mentium they could have understanding sufficient for the doing such an act And if no Laws oblige Men to their Pacts and Contracts done under such an age then sure it must be unreasonable that Children and Infants should be obliged to their act if they then did it or therefore obliged because others had done it upon whom they had no dependence Well but suppose these men in such a condition to be qualified to do such an act yet did another doubt arise which I could no ways salve viz. Who should define at what age the Men should be who should constitute this civitas Well I went yet further I supposed it granted That it should be agreed at what age Men in such a condition might give up their wills and constitute a civitas yet was it not in reason probable that this civitas should be of one days continuance For being formally constituted of such individual cives it could not be of any longer continuance then the cause Sublata causa tollitur effectus but the next day some of the cives would be probably dead and others grown up to be of age who were none of those individuals which did constitute the civitas Well but I supposed the cives who made Formae rerum sicut numeri consistunt in indivisibili They could not therefore be the cives that did constitute the civitas and by consequence no such could remain as the civitas this civitas to be immortal and no posterity yet could not I in reason expect it to be of any continuance for cujus est velle ejus est nolle and not onely all just and legal actions but all Arts and Sciences may truly and ultimately be resolved into their first Principles without any diminution to them The People therefore constant in nothing but inconstancy could not in reason be expected constant and obedient to their Creature the civitas onely and yet so in nothing else Besides I always did believe and yet do that all Mens Pacts and Wills must be conformable to the Laws of every place and where they are against them then do they oblige no further then to Repentance Much more therefore ought all mens Wills and Pacts to conform and submit to the Laws of Nature and never transgress that and that all Pacts and Acts of mens Wills made against it oblige to nothing but Repentance Nor is there any thing more abominable then to conceive that the Acts of mens Wills should irritate the Law of Nature which they say is immutable by God Hence it is I conceive that Mr. Hobbs will not have all men to be of a like and equal condition lege naturae but jure naturae and therefore most absurdly makes jus naturae to be contrary to lex naturae and yet oftentimes in his Preface and Cap. 8. Art 10. confounds jus with lex and that the Acts of mens Wills to make them in a better estate then God hath made them should be the Law of Nature or of God Whereas on the contrary If no man that ever was born in the World which was not a Posthumus King but was born in subjection not onely to his Parents or as a Servant in a Family but to something superior to these then cannot the will of that man nor all the men in the World alter or make that man in another condition then that whereof neither any act of his will nor the will of any man else was the cause But yet did not I conclude things onely as I was an intellectual or rational Creature but being a Christian I submitted all my Reason and Understanding to the most high Authority of sacred Scripture in those plain places which admit of no Controversie where both in the Old and New Testament the first causes of supream Power are owned to be Gods Ordinance Rom. 13. By God Kings raign and Princes decree Prov. 8. Justice and there can be no power but from above Joh. 19. 11. And all power is in relation to something subject to it But because I would not seem to see only with mine own eyes I desired yet to be better informed of these things and from whom better then Mr. Hobbs and Hugo Grotius Men no doubt of as eminent learning and parts as any this last Age hath produced these Men both derive their civitas from such Principles as is before spoken of viz. From the Pacts and contracts of Men in a parity and equal condition but so far was I from being convinced that if I understand them aright I was amazed to see such inconsistible
and impossible things to come from Men otherwise so learned For though Mr. Hobbs does lay down his Principles and persue his method much more clearly then Grotius does yet his Principles are so monstrous That to me it is impossible any ingenuous Man should assent to them Indeed if Mr. Hobbs would have supposed that the state of Man had been either in Society or out of Society and that out of Society Men had been in such a state as he makes them in his state of pure Nature I should never have stumbled at it But he forsooth requires it for a Yet thus much I will tell Mr. Hobbs he may as wel suppose a Brute an intellectual or rational Creature or a man no intellectual or rational Creature as no sociable or out of Society Principle That all Men jure naturali are in a parity and equal condition and may kill one another without any offence or sin and that Men continue in this estate until by their civil Pact they oblige themselves to one another that the will of the civitas shall be the will of them all Notwithstanding this I must needs say of Mr. Hobbs That if Men have so little understanding as to make Jus naturale to be contrary to Lex naturalis and so little grace as to believe that the civitas hath all its power from the Pacts and wills of Men and yet impossible to command any thing contrary to the Law of Nature which he says is the Law of God and tyranny to be onely ab exercitio when as it is impossible for Kings to command any thing contrary to the Law of Nature and all Faith and Ghostly Power which our Saviour left in his Church to be instrumental and subservient to it and never look how little he understands a Pact or from whence Men become obliged to it the cives of this Vtopia may do well enough If I edified but little by Mr. Hobbs yet I received much less satisfaction from Grotius for Mr. Hobbs defines his terms so clearly as to me he was easily understood whereas all Grotius his Principles are so perplexed and equivocal that it is not possible for any Man to understand any thing clearly from him As the first thing in his Preface he confounds is Societas Communitas whereas Societas is as different from Communitas as black is from white Societas according to the definition of Aristotle being Pol. lib. 1. cap 5. Vnum quid it a constans ex diversis personis ut sit unum quod imperet alterum quod pareat Society is one thing so made up of divers persons that one may command another obey Whereas community is where any company of Creatures are without the offices of commanding and obeying Well but having got out of his Preface after some Propositions of his Method c. he in the Tenth Paragraph of the First Chapter of the First Book De jure Belli Pacis defines Jus Naturale in a tedious general thing to be dictatum rectae rationis c. and this to be the Law of God and about the middle to be immutable by God himself and towards the latter end to continue but for a certain space and towards the beginning he makes the Dominion which is now in use to be brought in by the will of Man and this to be Jus Naturale too Now let any ingenuous Man judge what can be clearly deduced from Jus Naturale which is the Law of God and immutable by God and yet to continue but for a certain time until a Dominion brought in by the will of Man should abrogate what was immutable by God and this Dominion thus brought in against this Jus Naturale to be Jus Naturale too If I have slandered Grotius let any Man see the Paragraph aforesaid It was to me an admirable thing to consider that men so learned should one of them define the Law of Nature to be Dictamen rectae rationis the other Dictatum rectae rationis Well I will therefore see what Ratiocinatio is and what Dictamen or Dictatum rectae rationis which is the same thing and whether this can to any ingenuous man be any probable definition of the Law of Nature Aristotle Eth. Lib. 6. Cap. 3. makes Ratiocination and by consequence every dictate of Reason to be from Universals and that there are some Principles which do constitute the Ratiocination of which there can be no Ratiocination These Principles for which no Reason can be given and yet the reason of all those things which can be deduced from them are called Axiomata Dignitates or Communes Notiones and from these men by Ratiocination or Right Reason do infer Arts and Sciences a Scientia est actio ars effectio Eth. l. 6. c. 4. Both begotten by right Reason Ars est habitus ad faciendum idoneus cum verâ ratione conjunctus Nay all Ratiocination or Right reasoning whatsoever may be resolved into somewhat which is superior to this Ratiocination for which no reason can be given * These things thus premised I say it is impossible the Law of Nature should be the dictate of Right Reason and thus I prove it Every Principle which does constitute Ratiocination and for which no Reason can be given is no dictate of Right Reason But the Law of Nature is a Principle which does constitute Ratiocination and for which no reason can be given Therefore the Law of Nature is no dictate of Right Reason If Mr. Hobbs denies the Minor Proposition set him shew into what it can be further resolved or what can prove it For though God be the prime and efficient cause of all things but what proceeds from the will of man and into which all things may be ultimately resolved yet by Principles Aristotle and all Philosophers understand those things which immediately proceed from God and the Law of Nature could not be the Law of God if it did not immediately proceed from him but the Law of that thing from which it did immediately proceed the Law of Nature therefore is a Principle Well but let us suppose the Law of Nature to be the dictate of Right Reason and see the consequence Every dictate of Right Reason is of less Dignity Authority and Excellency then the Right Reason viz. The Effect then the Cause But ex hypothesi the Law of Nature viz. the Law of God the Creator is the dictate of Right Reason Therefore is the Law of the Creator of less Dignity authority and excellency then the faculty and attribute of the creature viz. Right reason then which what can be more monstrous and blasphemous Nor is this definition less ridiculous then impossible and blasphemous For the dictates of Right reason are understood by one man and not by another and may be learned and taught Suppose now one of these Masters of Reason should come to the most plain and ignorant man in the world who is
compos mentis and tell him he would instruct and teach him the most excellent dictate of Reason in the world viz. That there is one God infinitely good who is to be worshiped and served by man And that this God requires of every man that in that state wherein he hath made him he would not willingly do that to another which he would not have done to himself would not this poor ignorant man deride this Master of Reason and tell him he knew this as well as himself But suppose he should be so impudent as to deny this since Grotius is not in case I would desire Mr. Hobbs to prove it or give a right reason thereof and learn this man his Dictate of Right reason Well but let us see whether this Canting thing be worth the name of a Definition Omnis definitio est exclusio aequivoci If the Law of Nature be the Dictate of Right reason then does the Law of Nature exclude every thing else from being the Dictate of Right reason or this cannot be the definition of it I would know now of Mr. Hobbs whether all Arts and Sciences and Prudent actions be the Laws of Nature or not If they be the Laws of Nature then is every Inscientifical and Imprudent man an Unjust man If they be not the Laws of Nature and so not the Dictates of Right reason then let Mr. Hobbs shew what else does dictate them Nor is Mr. Hobbs less happy in defining a Pact upon which he grounds his Civitas It is just therefore that this man who Cap. 18. Art 4. makes all Science to be from Definitions only or Subjects without Predicates without which it is impossible there can be a Proposition and all Science to be from the memory which is common to all Beasts as well as Mr. Hobbs for so the Oxe knows his owner and the Ass his masters crib it being only retained in the memory excluding the Understanding should so rashly define things and understand them no better To believe there is a God to be worshiped and served and that no man should wilfully in that state and condition wherein God hath made him do that to another which he would not have done to himself is that Law which God hath engraven in the mindes of all mortal men wise and unwise learned and ignorant noble and ignoble in their wits and is the foundation and basis of all Humane society And this is that first and universal cause from which all moral virtues the dictates of Right reason from this cause do more genuinely and naturally flow then any Proposition in Geometry does from the Axiomes or Principles of it For what man is there in this world of what estate and condition soever but desires not to be wronged and injured Let not him then in that state wilfully wrong or injure any other of what estate soever If he be a Subject and desires to be protected in his life and fortune by the Laws of his Country from the violence and oppression of other men let not him abuse or violate the Laws of his Country to the wrong or oppression of another If he desires every man should keep promise and do justly by him let not him break his word and deal unjustly with another Is he a King he would not willingly be disseised or oppressed by another let him not therefore disseise or injustly oppress another Does any King desire not to be invaded or oppressed by his Subjects let not him therefore oppress his Subjects If he had been a Subject he would have desired protection from his Prince by an equal and moderate distribution of known Laws let him therefore equally moderately govern his Subjects by known Laws And from this Law did always men desire though ignorant of the manner to worship and serve GOD although they misplaced the Deity in the Sun Moon an Oak Apollo Jupiter c. And this is that Law which shall judge and condemn the immoral actions and vices of men in all Ages especially in this latter Age because they sinned against the Light or Law of Nature engraven in the minds of all men Now whether these men being Christians in name yet having cast off all Christian society and not being of any Christian church or religion that I ever heard of should not be content here but although they scarce agree in any thing else proceed so far as to make the Laws of God subject and depending upon the reasons and phantasies of men and not to tell them where their reasons shall begin if not at the Laws of God but every man left to go a whoring after his own inventions For what can then restrain man where his Reason is become superior to the Laws of God and to make all humane society to have its origination from the pacts and wills of men have not been as great enemies not only to Christian religion but also to all humane society as the malice of the Devil could invent let any sober unbiassed man judge or if all the confusions and distractions in Christendom to the shame and scandal of Christianity have not had their origination from this pretence Nor hath this sensless resolution of all things into Reason ended only in the distractions of State but also been the first source and fountain from whence all these distractions and confusions in the Church have arisen without any possible hope of ever reconciling them where these principles are continued Hence it is that the venerable and highest Authority of the sacred Scriptures are become the subject of all Tavern-discourses and every man that scarce understands any reason must forsooth have a reason given him why the Scriptures are the Word of God And yet in all other Authorities whatsoever men will deride the folly of others who go about to prove them by Reason for Reason is begotten alwaies from Authorities and Principles and therefore cannot Authorities and Principles be begotten from Reason I have been often almost astonished to consider how such sensless blasphemous and ridiculous things should meerly from the authority of the Assertors be imposed upon and received by the world without contradiction whereas narrowly looked into one would scarce believe the Authors had ever understood Logick or one leaf in Aristotle And for my part if I could not ultimately resolve the Dictates of my Reason as a Christian into plain places of Scripture so well as any Geometrician could any Proposition of Geometry into the Principles of Euclids Elements I would be content to let them wander for ever without any termination rather then admit them the Scriptures to be a creature of a creature and the subject of every wild phantastical conceit and opinion And if I could not ultimately resolve the reason of all my moral actions as a man into the Law of Nature which God has engraven in mens minds and not into the wills of men I would be content to conclude with Carneades that men have at divers times
are very dull and yet of vast memories who remember all things but can scarcely be ever made to discourse of and understand any thing and of Men that are too light and phantastical who only talke generally without applying these generals to any particular The one is like a Ship which is overladen with Ballast and not having Sailes proportionable can scarcely be made to saile with any winde the other is like a Ship which hath no Ballast and so much saile that she is never in any steadiness but carried hither and thither upon every small puff of winde the one will upon any discourse or ratiocination be still absurdly telling particular stories which he in his defect of understanding supposes should be the universal and prime reason of the discourse whereas the other from the lightness of his phantasie and defect of memory never applies his general notion to any particular thing and so concludes nothing 8. Whereas Aristotle and the Doctor affirm that experiment proceeds Axiomes and Principles do not proceed from experiment from many memories or memory multiplied and that ratio universalis definitiones c. proceed from experiment A Man may justly deny it for it is not many things or multiplied things which can make ratio universalis but ratio universalis axioma c. is that which does not signify many things only but every thing which is comprehended in the terms and it is impossible that any Man should make experiment of all things which are comprehended under one general Notion 9. Aristotle saies Per experientiam ars scientia hominibus efficitur Nor Art and Sciences Met. lib. 1. c. 1. an finem Experientia enim ut recte ait Polus b Apud Plat. in Gorgia artem efficit imperitia vero casum to which the Doctor subscribes and saies there can be no prudent or truly knowing Man which by his proper experiment hath not throughly understood a thing to be so If this were universally true then could no wise or prudent Man understand throughly any Law which forbids Theft or Murder upon the penalty of hanging unless he should steale and commit Murder and so be hanged for his pains and for my part I will rather beleeve that if a Man puts his finger into the fire he will burn it and that if he be long over head and ears in the water he will drown himself then make experiment thereby to be accounted a wise and prudent Man Afterwards he saies From hence it is viz. for want of experience many pretenders Page 30. to knowledge and Sophisters cropping of the inventions of other Men the same things every where the order only and words changed and a few things of small moment added do confidently challenge for their own and render Philosophy which ought to be certain and perspicuons obscure intricate and confused It is true that in all argumentation a posteriori viz. from the effect to endeavor to find out the cause there can be no direction without experiment and therefore it is a very difficult if not an impossible thing that any Art or Science can be made from any conclusions in Philosophy which are drawn a posteriori which at the best cannot arise to higher then probable and opinonative and can never be certain and perspicuous And though the Doctor from his great parts and experiment in Anatomy hath probably found out things never before received yet cannot any of those conclusions ever attain to demonstrative certain and perspicuous conclusions yet it does not hold true in argumentation a priori that all things are known by experiment but that infinite things are known and understood which are abstracted from matter and experiment and are easily understood by any Man without experiment 10. Nor is it true universally that there is no knowledge innate in Man for the Laws of Nature are innate and connatural with Man and Man is not naturally without all Knowledge not acquired either by sense experiment or any thing else 11. As I have said before so do I say again that there is no Age that hath not received many things for truths which the next generation upon The manner and order of attaining to Knowledge is a subtil disquisition further inquiry and looking into them have found to be but verisimilitudes and that from things found out infinite productions will be made as long as the world indures and as it is not fairplay to carp at anothers opinion and not to set down his own and give a reason for it So will it be meer levity to contest with another if not upon superior Grounds and he that shall contest with so great a Philosopher as Aristotle in a thing so long received and uncontroverted had need take great heed and have his wits about him least instead of evicting his adversary he only acquires the repute of a light and foolish Man But least we should skip short for want of taking our run far enough back we will begin at the beginning of all things 12. As I am a Christian and therefore by the First Chap. Gen. ought There is but one first Entity and that is God to beleeve that God made Heaven and Earth Man and all other Creatures so if I had not received Gods divine revelation of himself in the Scriptures yet should I never have been a Peripatetick or Aristotelian who held that not only the world but the species of all things in it were from all eternity For there was either one first being the true prime and efficient cause of all things else or two or more first beings or no first being but all things were originally from themselves but the two latter are most manifestly absurd and contrary to sense and reason for unitas est secundum quam unumquodque eorum quae sunt unum dicitur but the first is one thing it is therefore impossible there should be two firsts or more nor is it less absurd to suppose all things to have been from eternity and so not to have proceeded from one superior being but had their being from themselves for if all things had from all eternity a power and being of themselves then might they have infinitely continued their being in their individuals and we see that every thing does naturally desire the preservation of its self but this is most manifestly false for we see all things are in their individuals resoluble into their first composition and perpetuated by generation in their species there is therefore but one first being of all things except sin which is contrary to the nature and essence of God who is all good which is God 13. All things were either originally generated of their like or from themselves or created by God But nothing could generate any thing like God in the beginning created all things it self before it was and by the precedent proposition no Creature could have its original being from its self All things
that experiment must first be in the senses and antecedent to the memory And whereas they say that experience is from multiplied memory A man may burn his fingers upon once trial as well as oftner the Idea's of those objects they have received into their senses when the things so received are removed from the senses And that all creatures as well as Man have Memory is most evidently seen in all creatures which can distinguish the voice of them that feed them from others of the same kind and do more easily discern them then men do another which were impossible without Memory Any Dog Horse Cow or any other irrational creature knows his Keepers voice from any other mans Let a Dog be carried an hundred miles from a place and if he loses his Master and be not restrained before he be well acquainted he shall return home the same way he came Nay no question but that the outward senses of irrational creatures are much more exquisite then mens and are much more prone in their will and more subtle in their phantasie to attain those things which are pleasant and natural to them and do much better remember those things they have received by their senses Annot. By this Proposition it is evidently false which * Anal. post 16. lib. 2. cap. ult Meta. l. 1. c. 1. Aristotle says In aliis animalibus res percepta manet in aliis non manet And if it be true that he says a little after Ex sensu fit memoria ex memoria experientia experientia principium artis scientiae then are all irrational Creatures better apted and disposed to apprehend the Principles of all Arts and Sciences then Men for no question but the senses of irrational Creatures are much more subtile and exquisite then in Men. And by his position of Memory being from the Sense and Experiment from Memory he makes all Creatures to be as scientifical and artificial as Men where he says that Experientia pene simile quid scientiae ac arti esse videtur c. And whereas * De gen anim Pag. 21. Dr. Harvey says pag. 27. de Gen. Anim. that ex sensu permanet sensatum ex permanentia sensati fit memoria I would know in which of the senses is this permanens It cannot be in any of the outward senses for it is a contradiction for any man to say he remembers any thing he presently and actually sees feels tastes hears or smells It must be therefore that this permanens of the thing perceived is retained by the Common sense viz. of the Phantasie or Understanding which is a confounding of two faculties of the soul viz. of the Memory and Phantasie or Understanding in one viz. the Common sense or Understanding And this the Doctor plainly confesses where he says Quod in ipsa visione sive actu videndi singulare clarum distinctum erat id ipsum mox remoto visibili clausis nimirum oculis in phantasia abstractum vel in memoria reservatum obscurum indistinctum apparet c. 35. The Understanding is that faculty of the soul which apprehends What is the Understanding universal and prime causes for which no reason can be given and does phancy things true and false just and unjust and discerns and judges not only of things represented to the outward senses but also of things retained in the memory And as the Understanding does apprehend universal notions in the abstract without the reason and for which no reason can be given so does it also those things which are rightly deduced from them by reason 36. Those things are Principles which constitute Ratiocination and All things in the Understanding were not first in the Senses by the authority of Aristotle for which no Reason can be given Eth. lib. 6. cap. 3. Nothing can be Prime or Principle but to that faculty of the Soul sensitive or intellectual which does first apprehend it For if there be any thing in the Understanding which was before in the Senses this cannot be a Principle to the Understanding but to the Sense which did first apprehend it As if I say I know such a thing is true because I saw it this thing is not a Principle to the Understanding but the Sense which did first apprehend it But no man will ask a reason of the Sense viz. why I saw such a thing for it is absurd and no reason can be given of it because it was first represented to the Sense But Arist l. 6. c. 6. Eth. Mens sive intellectus sit principiorum scientiarum All things therefore which are in the Understanding by the authority of Aristotle were not first in the Senses 37. I know this will at first blush seem a strange Paradox yet narrowly There is nothing in the understanding which was first in the senses looked into is as true as any Proposition in Geometry For the outward Senses apprehend only the corporiety or substance of things represented unto them but the Understanding only the incorporiety of things so seen c. and discerns and judges whether such things so apprehended by the Senses be pleasant profitable just or unjust reasonable or unreasonable commensurable or incommensurable Nor is the Idea of any thing thus seen heard or felt ever after it be removed out of the sight retained in the Understanding but Memory where the Understanding discerns and judges what before was in the Senses As if I see such a solid body the Understanding judgeth whether this body be commensurable or not by any notion or proposition before understood This body afterwards removed and the Idea or form retained in the Memory the Understanding discerns and judges the passions of it so retained which before it did in the outward senses So I hear such a story told of things before done afterward the sound is past and the story retained in the Memory the Understanding there judges and phancies it Only things corporeal and substantial therefore being the objects of the outward Sense and things incorporeal and without substance the objects of the Understanding there can nothing be in the Understanding which was first in the Senses It is therefore absurd for any man to say he understands that such a man hath such a hand or face or did such an action because being corporeal and the objects of the Sense they cannot be in the Understanding but Memory He therefore remembers such a man had such a face or hand or did such an action But he may most properly say he understands such a face or hand to be good or handsom or that such an action was good or bad because these things being incorporeal cannot be apprehended by the outward Senses but judged or phancied to be so by the Understanding 38. If it be true which Aristotle and all Philosophers affirm that there There is nothing judged or discerned in the senses or memory which was not before in the
understanding cannot be any effect but from some efficient cause nor act without an agent then is it not possible but that which is in the understanding and does judge discern and phancie is superior and must precede every thing which is so judged discerned and phancied in the memory or senses All things therefore are so far from being in the senses before they were in the understanding that it is not only impossible that any thing which was in the sense should be in the understanding but also that which is in the understanding must be before it can judge discern or phancie any thing in the memory or senses And by consequence no Art nor Science can be learned or taught another who does not first understand the Principles thereof nor is it possible that the Principles of any Art or Science can be taught I know it is usual for men to confound the sense with the understanding As when a man talks unconclusively they say he talks not sense yet it may be he speaks very loud that is truly he talks not understandingly or not to be understood 39. By the authority of Aristotle Eth. lib. 6. cap. 6. the Understanding The Understanding is a ray of Divine light in the soul of man does apprehend things either abstractly or concretely Abstractly without the Reason as Principles for which no Reason can be given or concretely with the Reason as when by the Reason it apprehends things deduced from such Principles before understood and for which no reason can be given for Intellectus sit principiorum Scientia vero cum ratione conjuncta The understanding therefore of prime and universal causes for which no reason can be given can be nothing else but radius divini luminis in animabus hominum and by consequence it cannot be learned taught or communicated by any Creature or all the Creatures in the world 40. Only Man of all Creatures of this world understanding prime Only Man of all the creatures of this inferior orb is an intellectual creature necessary and universal causes and phancying things true and false just and unjust only Man is an Intellectual creature 41. * What things are Principles I. Principles by the authority of Aristotle Eth. lib. 6. cap. 3. are those things which are known to an Intellectual creature which do constitute Ratiocination and of which no reason can be given and cap. 6. are apprehended only by the Mind or Intellect Such are the Principles of Geometry and such are Idem eidem secundum idem esse non esse impossibile Omnis affirmatio aut negatio aut vera aut falsa Cujus est nolle ejus est velle c. II. Man not being only an Intellectual but a Sociable creature God hath engraven in the minds of all men certain Laws for which no reason can be given to which they ought to conform all their actions for the preservation of peace and society among men III. But because the Laws of Nature oftentimes only are ex Thesi there must be some things ex Hypothesi which must be understood and these must be prime and superior to them to whom they are given and for which they can give no reason or they cannot be the rule and reason of their actions I require Humane and Despotical Laws for Principles to those who by right or due are subject to them IV. But God having made Man not only intellectual rational and sociable but endued him with an immortal soul capable of eternal happiness He hath extraordinarily and supernaturally revealed himself in the Scriptures that men submitting themselves and their Reasons to those Divine precepts might work out their salvation with fear and trembling But if it be asked How shall I know the Scriptures to be Gods Word since they are not known to be so by the understanding nor outward sense I would ask that man if he be a Christian how he came to be so For his being a Christian implies his belief in them as the Word of God and he is required no more And if the power and grace of God were not as much shewed in converting the world to Christianity by the preaching of a company of poor Fishermen all Temporal powers persecuting and contradicting it as in all the Miracles of old under the Prophets and Patriarchs And whether the power and grace of God in his Son was not more visible under the New then in the Prophets and under the Old Law But because the Laws or Precepts of God in the Scripture command many things in Thesi only as Let all things be done decently and in order 1 Cor. 14. 40. 1 Tim. 2. and Let prayers and supplications be made for all men c. But this Decencie and Order is no where prescribed or defined by the Scripture and the Church to whom the right of defining such things is given by God ex Hypothesi the Laws therefore of Church or Ecclesiastical Laws are principles and necessary for conservation of Christian society I require only Humane Ecclesiastical and Despotical Laws for principles which do not immediately proceed from God All other principles whatsoever proceed or are immediately created only by God alone 42. All Men understand that they ought to obey the Laws of their No Laws create any obligation in conscience from any thing which was in the senses superiors But by the 37. Proposition there is nothing in the understanding which was in the senses Mens Obedience therefore or their obligation in conscience to the Laws of their superiors is not from any thing which was in the senses But it does proceed from the connatural Laws of Nature engraven by God in the minds or understandings of Men or from his Grace supernaturally given to Men and by consequence those men who do not from innate good principles their duty in conscience will never from any thing feared or received into the senses be it Whipping Branding or Hanging ever be made good but only deterred from being bad 43. Belief is the assenting to a thing to be true or false not as either What is Belief known to the understanding or outward senses but as affirmed or denied by one or more who are credible persons 44. Faith is the assenting to a thing to be true or false not as known What is Faith to the understanding or outward senses but as commanded or forbidden by God extraordinarily and supernaturally 45. It is an admirable thing to consider the providence of God who Whether things only credible may be as certain as known to the senses and incidently of the divine excellency of truth above any sensible knowledge is the God of truth in the preservation of those things which impartially relate the actions of Men and the revolutions which have hapned in the world Nor is it any more then a just and equal testimony Polybius in the Proem of his History gives of Truth viz. that she ought to
49. All demonstrative Science being begotten from certain and necessary From whence the Confusions and Distractions in Christendom have arisen pre-existent Principles the Laws of God and Man being pre-existent where they are clear and not inevident which is not always the imperfection of Mans Law nor can ever be of Gods Law Men may as clearly and as demonstratively demonstrate Conclusions from thence as from the Axiomes in Geometry And no question that all the Confusions which have lately hapned in Christendom were not caused from any want of understanding of the Laws of God or Man but from the perverse wills of Men who would not be restrained from their wickedness neither by the Laws of God or Man 50. Reason is a faculty of the Understanding which does prepare apt What is Reason and define things either in the outward sences or memory so as they may be comprehended by something before known to the Understanding or Reason is that which does dictate the doing of any thing conformable to something in the Understanding 51. All Propositions by the authority of Aristotle are demonstrable What is an Axiom or common Notion or indemonstrable Indemonstrable Propositions are those Propositions which are Axioms or common Notions for which no reason can be given and though indemonstrable in themselves do demonstrate all the Conclusions which follow from them An Axiom or common Notion is such an indefinite prime and necessary Proposition which comprehending any definite thing within its terms does necessitate such a Conclusion 52. A Definition is the comprehending every such individual thing What is a Definition in such a term as may express such a thing excluding every thing else 53. Although Definitions are properly terms comprehending individual Wherein a Notion and Definition differ things yet is there oftentimes a necessity of comprehending Notions or Axioms too under significant terms as a Law is a term which may signifie all rightful commands which are prime and universal Propositions to them who ow obedience to such commands which comprehending any action does necessitate such an action to be just So Geometry not onely comprehends all Propositions which have reference to surveying or measuring of Ground but also all the Propositions in Euclids Elements are comprehended under the terms or notion of Geometry c. Definitions are of Singulars Notions of Generals or Universals the Reason Memory and outward Senses are of Definitions the Understanding of Axioms or common Notions The Doctor does not onely confound the Memory and Understanding Annot. Pag. 21. de Gen. An. where he says Quod in ipsa visione sive actu videndi singulare clarum indistinctum erat id ipsum remoto visibili in phantasia vel memoria reservatum thereby making the phantasie and memory the same thing obscurum indistinctum apparet c. But also here and Page 27. he confounds Axioms and common Notions with Definitions where he says That from experience comes ratio Universalis Definitiones maxima sive Axiomata communia cognitionis certissima And the instances he gives of his meaning is quite awry and nothing to the purpose For idem eidem secundum idem esse non esse impossible is not onely not known from experiment but is as much known to any intellectual Creature before experiment as after And so omnis affirmatio negatio aut vera aut falsa est These Axioms are not Axioms because they are found true by experience but because universally known to be true before any experiment was made of them nor is it possible that experiment should be made of all things wherein they hold true the truth therefore of them cannot proceed from experience 54. Although divers Men do phansie the same thing seen or remembred Why some Men are more rational then others yet if they do not rationally phansie it viz. by comprehending that thing seen or remembred in something before understood to be true or false c. Then do they never conclude or agree in their inference Those Men therefore who do not rightly conclude a thing either the Object of the outward Senses or the Idea of it reserved in the Memory from something before understood but because they affect or desire it to be so conclude affectionately not rationally And Men who do so are less rational then other Men who do not 55. Knowledge is the knowing of a thing from the causes What is Knowledge 56. a Knowledge or Science how manifold All Knowledge or Science is either rational or sensible 57. b What is rational Science All Rational Science is a right Inference or Conclusion mediately or immediately from some universal Cause known to the Understanding 58. c How Science differs from Reason Intellectus sit Principiorum Scientia cum Ratione conjuncta Eth. lib. 6. cap. 6. Reason is the Instrument of the Understanding begetting Science is the thing which from the Understanding by the Reason is begotten 59. A Demonstrative Proposition is when the Predicate or Axiome What is a Demonstrative Affirmative Proposition understood comprehends the thing defined which is remembred Or any right Inference Conclusion or Dictate of Right Reason from Necessary and Universal Causes may be the Predicate of any Demonstrative Proposition 60. A Negative Demonstration is when Reason shews that the Subject What is a Negative Demonstrative Proposition cannot be comprehended by the Predicate 61. Logicians make three necessary parts or terms in every Proposition The necessary Parts of every roposition viz. the Nomen antecedens the Nomen consequens and the Copula The Nomen antecedens is the subject or thing in the outward sense or memory defined The Nomen consequens is the Predicate or something known to the understanding which comprehends the Subject And the Copula is that which joins these two As Omnis homo est animal Homo is the Subject or the thing seen or remembred Animal is the Predicate or Notion which comprehends Homo which is the thing understood and Animal does not only comprehend Homo and all other Creatures which a man has seen or heard of but all those Creatures which he shall ever see or hear of And est is the Copula which unites the Subject Homo with the Predicate Animal Annot. When I say the Subject is the thing sensible or remembred I always except Metaphysicks and Mathematicks which are considered without any sensible matter And indeed it is an admirable thing to consider how intelligibly Mathematicks are understood without any sensible matter more then any corporeal things are 62. It is truly observed that every perfect creature is generated from Rational Science is produced from the understanding by the reason and memory or outward senses matter and form diffused in several bodies and creatures and that this matter and form so long as it continues thus diffused in divers bodies is never qualified for generation or production of any
not to us as the Quadrature of a Circle and what proportion or ratio rather the subtending side of an Isoceles right-angle Triangle hath to one of the comprehending sides And some Effects are certainly known to us but the Causes are not known either to the understanding or outward sense as that Summer is hotter then in Winter and that men are sick and indisposed I say therefore where the Causes are but probable and conjectural whatever the Effect be no Conclusion can possibly amount any higher for Conclusio sequitur deteriorem partem 69. All Arts and Sciences are begotten from pre-existent Principles No Art or Science arises from Argumentation à Posteriori which are known to be necessarily true But in argumentation à posteriori the Effects are only known to be but not the Causes which are only probable No Art therefore or Science does arise from argumentation à posteriori 70. By the 38. Proposition it is impossible that any thing in the memory No probable Conclusion arises from Experiment or Memory or the outward senses should be judged phansied or concluded but by something which was before in the understanding Experiment therefore memory or the outward senses which only apprehend the material forms and effects of things seen c. cannot conclude any thing probably any more then a dead body can move without life besides it is so ridiculous that I wonder every man does not deride it Will any man say a great Lout new whipt is probably like to make a good Schollar because he hath made experiment of the strokes of a Rod or that the Fool in St. Joneses is a wise fellow because he makes experiment of the power of the Sun by his every daies sleeping in the raies of it Or that a Butcher is an excellent Philosopher because he makes experiment of killing Cattel And that experiment and memory does not move one step to the attaining of any probable Conclusions the Physitian or Philosopher reads the lecture on the parts Anatomized whereas the Surgeon dissects and makes the experiment And if experiment were the only way to attain to probable conclusions in Physick and Philosophy then not the Physitian but the Apothecary were the There is no probable Conclusion without Experiment or Memory better Philosopher 71. If by the 7. Proposition the apprehension of universal Causes certainly and necessarily true in the understanding cannot produce or prove any thing without the concurrence of particular causes then in reason cannot probable causes of themselves without the concurrence of particular causes either known to the outward sense or remembred produce any thing I will not therefore give one rush for any Physitians or Philosophers judgment who is not an experienced man 72. There are some things which nature brings to pass without any From whence men attain to probable conclusions art or help of any Creature others never without art and industry as a House and all Arts and Sciences In the first God is the great and only Opificer And it is only He who made Man and all other Creatures not meerly spiritual of such principles and so compounded that they every minute tend to the resolution of their first principles and yet in their thus dying something should generate in them which should perpetuate the generation of them in their species as they shall dye in their individuals Thus we see some soyl brings forth without any art or industry of man Grass Firr Broom c. Some is of a petrifying quality in other are Mines of Silver Gold Coal c. non omnis fert omnia tellus Some men grow sick others well without any cause from themselves These causes therefore being only known to God there cannot be any demonstrative conclusion from them by men because the causes are not evidently and necessarily known But although it be not Gods pleasure that men should understand the causes of these things so as to conclude demonstratively from them yet as having made two lights of different splendor vix the Sun and Moon though men see clearly only by the light of the Sun yet do men see although obscurely and but probably by the light of the Moon so though men do not in natural Philosophy and Physick from prime and necessary causes as from the light of the Sun see so as to conclude demonstratively yet hath not God always in these things totally shut out all light from men but they see as by the light of the Moon and in Philosophy are Theses and Aphorisms in Physick from whence by these senses memory and experiment men proceed infinitely and daily probably finde out things which before were not so 73. As in all Argumentation a priori there must be Principles assented No argumentation a Posteriori where Men agree not upon Principles to which must be the rule and reason of the argumentation and where men either by stubbornness or defect of understanding apprehend not Principles there of necessity can be no Art or Science taught so in argumentation a posteriori men must agree upon some Theses or Aphorisms which must be the rules of the argumentation men may discourse of the causes of things and not improbably conclude where they can make no experiments as in the causes of Meteors and Comets but no man can from all the experiment in the world conclude any thing but from something in the understanding which must be assented and comprehend that thing of which the experiment was made When therefore men by a defect in the understanding cannot apprehend Theses or Aphorisms or by stubborness they will not there all argumentation in either Physick or Natural Philosophy is at an end and it is impossible such men should either learn or be taught 74. Only man can by his reason from causes probable in his intellect Why only man attains conclusions a Posteriori Annot. rightly infer and conclude the causes of things in the memory or outward sences only man therefore can attain probable conclusions or concludge a Posteriori King James would affirm of his Hounds that in their hunting they used reason for when they had overrun the scent they would return on both sices of the path where they came and if on neither side they hit the scent off they would run back concluding because it was not on nor off on neither side it must necessarily be back where they came But more narrowly looking into this is not done of the Hounds by any reason or acquired habit but from an internal excited apperite moving them as Birds make nests and Bees hony-combs which they cannot but do at such times but cannot at other times nor yet learn nor teach them other creatures nay nor of the same kinde with themselves take a Hare Dear or Fox c. and let them be kept among Hounds in their kennel or so that the venatious appetite of them is not excited and they will not meddle with them whereas men
case to him whether there be a King or no King in Israel for he will do what is right in his own eyes For our Author says In renouncing the power Pag. 25. of our Will we renounce our Understanding also Our Author for his part needs not fear it but sure he fears that if he do so because he cannot hope that he is qualified enough to be a Privy-Councellor that he has bound himself up from dabling with the Grounds of Obedience and Government Why he should do well to be of Counsel with Adam against God for the Devil and he agree in the same thing viz. That it is not liberty enough for Adam to eat of the other trees of the garden in Eden no Adam must not renounce his will and understanding too in order to his chiefest good the knowledge of good and evil and making himself like unto God by tasting the forbidden fruit To our Author it is not liberty enough for the Subject to square his actions to the Laws and Rules of his Country he must not renounce his will to be commanded by King or Laws but must have his will too in making of Laws Now let our Author tell me what a Government this is like to prove Who will hold the plough that is perswaded he may handle the scepter Who will live in an obscure cottage that hopes he may govern at the helm or eat his bread in the sweat of his brows who may expect to fare deliciously every day And now let me tell our Author once for all That humane Laws are made to retain Subjects in their obedience lest a worse thing happen unto them There must be no starting out or breaking loose from them For Laws are like the banks which encompass waters if there be the least hole in them the banks will be blown up and the waters lose themselves The Fifth GROUND That Fidelity is different from Obedience and wherein it consists Author NOw some good body help a lame Dog over the stile Here we find our Author taking monstrous pains and in a great sweat why what 's the matter trow What! Our Author undertakes to shew that Servants owe their Masters no obedience but fidelity only And this he would prove by a mighty argument viz. A man buyes a piece of Cloth or other merchandise of another and pays for it And therefore Servants owe their Masters no obedience And if this will not do it his Ipse dixit must or he loses an essential ingredient towards the patching up of his Fools paradise Observ Now herein our Author and I differ and I fear we shall never agree in any thing Our Author will trust his servant where he expects no obedience and I will make my servant obey me whenas it may be I will not trust him for a groat And indeed our Author will do more for his servant then I see in reason any man should do for him For pag. 141. he tells us In pure Morality he may falsifie and break promise if he save any thing by it and is better then his word I shall say no more in answer to this Ground but object the authority of the Holy Ghost against it Ephes 5. 6. Servants be obedient to them that are your Masters according to the flesh c. The Sixth GROUND In what consists Right or Due Author HEre our Author says The next Consideration may appear too Metaphysical a Nicety for a Moral Treatise Yet he armed Cap-a-pe in compleat Ignorance valiantly attempts it and will tell you of I know not what of Reason which takes nothing to be good but what is good for a mans self and makes it the rule of his actions to do what is fitting for him or conformable to his that is to a Rational nature But this is a rule by which he treats Horses Dogs Trees and Stones c. and runs through all his actions Observ Well But since the men of this world were never more unreasonable and every man so pretending to Reason and yet no man almost can tell what he means by Reason let us see what Ratio Reason is and what Reasoning is and why Man is onely said to be a reasonable creature Reason is properly that power of the soul by which a Man is discerned from other living creatures and by which he does excell and command them By Horace it is put for the reasoning and discoursing of the soul for finding out what is true Ratio ponitur pro ratiocinatione discursu animi ad investigandum verum Cicero lib. 2. ad Heren Ratio est causa quae demonstrat verum esse id quod intendimus brevi subjectione Reason is the cause which shews that thing to be true which we intend in a short view And Reason is many times equivocally used for Counsel as Cicero in Verr. Mea quidem ratio cum in praeteritis rebus est cognita tum in reliquis explorata provisa est My counsel is as well known in things past as throughly tried and provided in other things Sometime for Respect Habenda est ratio honoris Men ought to respect their honor Sometime for Care Habenda est ratio rei familiaris Men must look after their houshold-affairs Sometime for Business Rationem habet cum terra quae nunquam recusat imperium He busieth himself with his land which never disobeys him Thus far Calapine Sometime it is taken for Account Lu. 16. 2. Redde rationem villicationis tuae Give an account of thy Stewardship Ratio in the third Definition of the fifth Book of Euclide est duarum magnitudinum ejusdem generis mutua quaedam secundum quantitatem habitudo Reason is a certain mutual habit of two magnitudes of the same kind after their quantity As when two Quantities of the same kind two Numbers two Lines two Superficies two Solids c. are compared one to another according to their quantity that is accordingly as one is greater less or equal to another this comparison or mutual habit of one to another was by Geometricians called Ratio But now I know not by what habit or custom Proportio which definition 4º lib. 5. Euclid is Rationum similitudo And definition 5 consists in three terms at least for indeed it must consist in four for where it is in three the medium is iterated twice as what proportion four hath to six six hath to nine c. hath eaten the former quite up and is only used Or take Reason thus Reason is that by which men from given Principles do rightly infer and deduce Conclusions And Reasoning is twofold either à priori or à posteriori A priori from the cause nature and matter of necessary truths to shew what effects follow from thence and such Propositions are called demonstrative or scientifical shewn and known from the Causes such are all Propositions in Geometry and Mathematiques Or when the Effect is certain and the Cause probable and these are but probable
Conclusions such as those in Philosophy and Physick As I would know the reason why Summer is hotter then Winter for so I find it to be why thus I reason It cannot be from the propinquity of the Sun to the Earth in Summer more then in Winter for the Earth is but a Point in proportion to the Universe besides the Sun is nearer to the Earth in Winter then in Summer for the Orbis magnus is not Spherical or Circular but Eccentrical and Elliptical which is plain because the revolution of the Earth or the Suns motion is finished in less time from the Autumnal Equinox to the Vernal then from the Vernal to the Autumnal and therefore nearer to the Earth in Winter then in Summer It is not then from the Suns nearness to the Earth which makes the Summer hotter then the Winter I find that the higher the Sun rises in our Horizon that is the nearer it comes to our Zenith when at the Meridian the hotter it is I therefore probably conclude that the heat in Summer is caused from the reflexion of the Sun and the nearer the radii are reflected to right angles the hotter it is and the more obliquely they are reflected the colder it is Or as when a Physitian from the symptoms of his indisposed Patient endeavors to find out the causes of his distemper c. this is reasoning à posteriori from the effect to find out the cause And men may reason from uncertain and false Principles as well as true but then always the Conclusions are so And therefore all Clavius his Demonstrations in his Practical Geometry and at the end of the sixth Book of Euclid of the Quadrature of a Circle though the Demonstrations be truly deduced are uncertain because it does not certainly appear That from the imaginary motion of the two right lines he there speaks of the Quadratrix line does cut the Base so that the side of the Quadratrix is a mean proportional between the Base and the Arch of the Quadrant And the Inferences and Conclusions which have caused so much confusion and distraction in these times are drawn from feigned and false Principles But in all true Propositions whatsoever no reason can be given for the first grounds and principles of them but only the will of the great Creator of all things who therefore so made them because it so seemed good unto him Of all the creatures upon earth Man only is reasonable for Man only contemplates God and looks up to heaven as thence expecting his beatitude Ovid. Metam Pronaque cum spectant anamalia caetera terram Os homini sublime dedit coelumque tueri Jussit erectos ad sydera tollere vultus And a little after Sanctius his animal mentisque capacius altae Deerat adhuc quod dominari in caetera possit Natus homo est Only Man from universal causes can by Reasoning the faculty of his understanding and memory rightly infer and conclude from them only Man has freedom in his will of doing or not doing and may if it be not his own fault in all his actions let his Will be informed by his Understanding and Reason whereas other Creatures do all things spontaneously that is by an impulse of Nature as they are moved by their objects or fears Therefore only Man does well and only Man does ill and only Man is happy and only Man is miserable Author But our Author goes on and tells you of a Tailor and a Mariner and I know not what indeed and concludes That now not the nature of two men but their words and what follows out of them ground their being active and passive This power of activity is in Latine called Jus or Justum in English Right or Due Our Author says before He that makes a promise to another man puts himself and his Promissary into a rank of agencie and patiencie upon a new score to wit that of Fidelity and Negotiating Observ Did ever man huddle up so much insignificant bumbast as here is or who in this world did from hence ever claim any Right or Property in any thing Well let us see then what we understand by Right or Due Right or Due is what any Man or company of Men claim to be his or theirs excluding all their fellow-Subjects And this Right Due or Property we no where find to be given by God immediately to any Man or Men but only the Land of Promise to the Children of Israel the Portion of whose Inheritance fell to them by Lot And by nature no Man has any property in any thing more then another if it be true as Cicero saies Privata nulla natura And Horace Non propriae telluris herum natura nec illum Nec me nec quenquam statuit What then gives it but the Law or Supreme Power of the Nation for Martial Hoc lege quod possis dicere jure meum est The Seventh GROUND Why Men desire to live in Community and of the necessity of Government Author HEre our Author tells us First It is fit to understand why Men desire to live in Flocks and Multitudes Observ Now would I know of our Author what these Men are and where to be found who desire to live so Or when did Men ever in the World in any place either live or desire to live so Indeed it is a received opinion that Man is born a living Creature apt and fit for society the Greeks called him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but indeed no Man does naturally desire the society company or conversation of another Man because he is a Man and therefore Men do not nor ever did live promiscuously in flocks and multitudes as our Author saies without subordination one under another but in any the meanest and most contemptible Family that ever was the company are not all alike to one another as those are which live in flocks and herds c. But because no Infant can live nor any Man live well without the help of another naturally there is in every Man a solitude how to live and so to live that his living be not a burden or troublesom to him Man does not therefore desire the company or society of others as men for then he would desire the company and society of all men alike of Good of Bad of Vertuous of Vicious of Servants and Vile as well as Noble and Generous but accidentally as expecting Profit Honor Knowledge c. from him or them with whom he consorts or associates himself And therefore on the Exchange in Faires Markets c. Men do not Meet so as only to see one another and to make up such a Herd for then they would meet in other places as well as there but that from their buying and selling and their exchanging of Merchandise they may derive from thence profit to themselves It is an admirable thing to see what a strange Ingenuity there is in those men in acquiring those things from other places which
Father was wont to say his Son commanded all Greece For the Athenians commanded the other Grecians He commanded the Athenians his Wife him and his Son commanded his Wife How much greater power had our Author in this Government than Themistocles his Child had over the Grecians For in all our Authors Government you shall find two degrees of Comparison above the superlative viz. the peoples Power over their supreme and absolute Governor and our Authors supreme supremest Power who has a Power when he will to make what he list the Peoples Laws which shall oblige and tie up their absolute Governor And when the toy takes him they shall be the Governors Laws And Ground 11. latter end No supreme Magistrate can be bound to any Laws contrary to what our Author or Governor shall call good Government And now who would think so wise a fellow as our Author who in this Government had such a monstrous and most unlimited soveraignty should by shewing his power in giving his Rational multitude liberty to dissolve it lose it all in an instant sure this Icarus if he neither drowns nor otherwise kills himself in the fall will only rise up again to hang himself Well but let us see whether upon our Authors principles this Government can be dissolved or be in the power of his People or Rational multitude All Men who have written of the Cause and Nature of things have put a difference between Natural and Voluntary or Rational causes or things Natural causes or things are those which proceed immediately from God and are above the Will or Reason of Man Voluntary causes or things are those which do not immediately proceed from God but from the Will and Reason of Man But ex Hypothesi this Government Ground 7. page 48. is connatural and Ground 8. page 50. Natural and therefore this Government is superior to the Wills or Reason of the People and cannot be by them dissolved but the resisting of it is a violence upon Nature and not only Irrational but Immoral and unjust Thus have we seen our Author make a Government and thus have wee seen our Author marre his Government Let him tell us Ground 15 â—herein consists the Liberty of the Subject Ground 16. Of the dispossession of a Supreme Governor and his Right And Ground 17. Of a Governor dispossessed only because our Author Ground 17. tells us that Pope Urban the eight was an Intelligent generous Prince and well versed in publick Government and he made a decision that after five years quiet possession of an Estate the Church was not bound to take notice whether the title were lawful or no I will tell our Author that if Pope Urban might not take notice after five years who is the lawful Governor yet Pope Pius the fourth after above twice the time declared by Pope Urban might take notice of it as you may see Hist Con. Triden 423. and 443. So then Pope Pius may do that which Pope Urban is not bound to do or say what he will for me I am content if after all this pains on my part I shall not in the Judgment of wiser and more discerning Men then my Author or self have made my self like our Author in thus far answering him to his Grounds of Obedience and Government OBSERVATIONS ON Mr. HOBBS De Cive Observ HIs first Axiome or Principle he begs both in the Preface and second Article of the first Book De Cive is That the beginning of Civil Society is from Mutual Fear Yet in his Preface and second Annotation upon this Article He fears that some men may deny it yea it is true that very many men do deny it This therefore being required for a Principle and the first Principle and by consequence not to be proved but to prove all that may be inferred from it and since that he grants that very many do deny this Principle Then by very many men must the whole body of De Cive be rejected For Contra negantes principia non est disputandum But if men will not grant this Principle in the Pref. and Annot. abovesaid he will prove it so that he will make them ashamed of it and how think you It will be somewhat odd sure to prove Principles He tells you That all Cities although they be at peace with their neighbors yet keep Garrisons and Soldiers upon their Frontiers And that when men go to sleep they shut their doors and that men taking a journey do it with a sword and that men treat usually before they fight Observ All Science all Learning and all Reasoning whatsoever by the authority of Aristotle is begotten from pre-existing Principles which prove the Science and Learning but by the judgment of Aristotle and all Philosophers and men in their wits no Science Learning or Reasoning can prove the Principles Besides it is a contradiction to say any thing is a Principle which can be proved for that which proves it is prime and a principle to it Would any man now think that these Critiques and pretended Masters of Reason had ever read one line in Logick or Aristotle who go about to prove Principles by such silly things as have scarce any verisimilitude in them Nor does he only make Fear to be the prime cause of all Humane Government and Civil Society but also chap. 16. art 1. he makes it the cause of all Religion and Worship of God Observ As if that men were not obliged to submit to higher Powers not only for wrath take it in what sense you will either fear of the wrath of the higher Powers or mutual fear of the wrath of other men but also for conscience sake And that God were not in gratitude to be worshiped and served by ingenuous men because he is good and created them intellectual and reasonable creatures but only by a servile fear of his Judgments from whence only vile and vitious men seem to but never truly serve or honor him A pretty institution of Religion and Government for the Men of Bedlam and Wives of Billingsgate He divides the whole Treatise into three titles viz. Liberty Empire and Religion Under the title of Liberty he speaks of men as they are in a state of meer Nature viz. of a state of men before they have by Pact given up their natural right to one Person or one Court or Company of men so that the will of this Man or Court shall be the will of all of them and this he calls cap. 5. art 9. Civitas or Persona civilis If Mr. Hobbs had by a state of Nature understood such a state as S. Paul Observ Rom. 2. 14. does viz. of men who have only the Law of Nature and not Gods Divine Law supernaturally revealed in the Scriptures to be their rule and guide and that men in such a state not having the Law may by Nature do the things contained in the Law for this Law is ingraven in the hearts of all men he
Ratiocination and no reason can be given of it for Mens sive Intellectus sit principiorum Scientia verò cum ratione conjuncta Dictamen therefore rectae Rationis cannot amount higher then rightly to infer or conclude from prime causes or principles and by consequence cannot be the Law of Nature or God if Mr. Hobbs cannot give something prime or superior to it from whence it may be inferred or deduced And if the Laws of Nature or God be the dictates of right Reason then are the Laws of God the Creator subject and inferior to the faculty of a creature which is not only absurd but most monstrous and blasphemous 7. But because to bind and to be bound cannot be in the same thing Cap. 2. art 5. 13. he makes obligans him who accepts the will of other men and obligatus him who does will and so forsooth is become bound by his own will Observ And had not this man more need to learn his Grammar better who makes obligans the patient and obligatus the agent then undertake to write Elements Philosophical De Cive whereas the contrary is true in both for obligans is he who doth will and obligatus is he who accepts or receives the will of another 8. The action of two men or more mutually transferring their Rights is Cap. 2. art 9. called a Contract Observ There was never I think two more gross mistakes committed in so few words For first he takes the fulfilling of a Contract for the Contract it self A Contract is the mutual stipulation of two or more that they will do or give and the mutual transferring of what is contracted for fulfills and adnulls the Contract and there have been and will be infinite Contracts where there is no transferring nay where there is a mutual transferring there can be no Contract Secondly no Contract can be of Rights but only of things in possession The act of two or more mutually transferring is the act of two or more giving not contracting In every Contract either both statim perform that which is contracted for Ibidem or one performs and the other is credited or neither perform Observ So that the Contract and the Performance are diverse things which immediately before he confounds Nor can his statim at all help him for the Contract must precede and the Performance be subsequent it matters not how much or little time for Majus minus non variant speciem Secondly If one may perform and the other be credited or neither perform then there may be Contracts where there is no mutual transferring which is absurd by his definition Where both soon after statim perform there the Contract so soon as it is performed is fulfilled or finished Observ Sure he takes great virtue to be in statim which makes a Contract and the annulling and fulfilling of a Contract to be the same thing Where one or both are credited there he cui creditur promiseth that he will afterwards perform such promise is called a Pact Observ I do wonder therefore from whence his una persona or una curia can derive their supreme power whenas nothing can pass from either or neither part by vertue of the civil pact And no doubt this Civitas will be a noble structure built upon such a foundation wherein I think no man did ever pronounce so much in so little more rashly 9. We are freed from Pacts by two things either when the Pact is performed Cap. 2. art 15. or forgiven Observ Therefore in the Civil pact if any Right passes from the Subject to the Supreme power then hath the Subject performed his pact and so becomes freed from his subjection 10. No man by his Pact is obliged to an Impossibility Cap. 2. art 14. Observ And therefore can no Supreme power be derived from the Pacts of men For where there is not Jus vitae necis there can be no Supreme power and no man hath a power over his own life and therefore no man can give it or transfer it to another 11. No man can be obliged by his Pact not to resist him who brings or intends damage to his body Art 18. Observ And therefore no penal Laws can be executed but Subjects are freed from their obedience whensoever they have so far transgressed Laws that they become liable to any corporal punishment for where men may resist there can be no subjection 12. Men must not resist where they cannot obey Princes because it is against Cap. 18. ar 13. the Civil pact Also by this article Men must suffer martyrdom rather then resist which is absurd by art 18. cap. 2. for martyrdom brings corporal punishment with it 13. An Oath adds nothing to the obligation of a Pact or Contract says Cap. 2. art 22. Tho. Hobbs Observ But if Perjury be a greater crime then single Falshood then no doubt but a man is more obliged to perform a Pact or Contract to which he hath sworne then he who hath not and a man may see many men afraid to forswear themselves who make no conscience of telling a lye And if no man be obliged by an Oath then is an Oath nothing but the taking of Gods name in vain and it had been a vain thing in Abraham to have made his eldest servant swear by the Lord God of heaven and the God of the earth that Gen. 24. 2 3. he should not take a wife to his son of the daughters of Cannaan 14. The second Law of Nature is Men must stand to their pacts Cap. 3. art 1. Observ Every Man is obliged to his promise by the Law of Nature and all Men are obliged to their pacts by the positive humane Laws of every place where they made them And to suppose that the Supreme power of any place is made from the pacts of Men and that Men are obliged to their pacts by the supreme Power of that place is absurd and Idem per Idem 15. See how learnedly he proves from Scripture the abolishing of Mens common Right to all things he cites Gen. 13. 8. And Abraham said to Lot let there be no strife I pray thee between thee and me and between my Cap. 4. art 4. Herdsmen and thy Herdsmen behold the whole Land is before thee depart from me I pray thee Observ Verse 7. is And there was a strife between the Herdsmen of Abrams cattel and the Herdsmen of Lots cattel So then before the abolishing of the common Right of all things Abram and Lot had property in their Servants and Cattel which is absurd and impossible for nothing can be common and proper 16. The succession was due to Esau by the Law of Nature being the Cap. 4. art 15. prope finem Observ eldest son of Isaac if he had not sold it or his Father otherwise appointed Yet he saies truly Cap. 3. Art 29. the Laws of Nature are immutable and here he saies
or not For men if they do not submit and consent to rightful Kings government they disobey God Deut. 17. 15. Nor did God rob the Israelites Syrians or Persians or any other Nation of any of their original right and power of making to themselves Kings by giving them Kings Nor were these Kings Civitates Naturales as he calls them having overcome by force and commanding lest they Cap. 5. art 12. should kill Xenophon in his Proeme to Cyropoedia says We know they did partly obey Cyrus who were severed from him many days journey they who were severed from him many moneths journey and they who had never seen him and lastly they who could not hope ever to see Cyrus yet were content to obey him And when he had reckoned up all the Countries subject to Cyrus says He enjoyed the Dominion of all those Kingdoms whose language was neither the same with his nor common with themselves And yet there could be nothing less then for fear of him so great a part of the world should obey that all stricken with fear none should dare to disobey him Observ And whereas he says That is to be understood the will of the Council Art 7. which is the will of the major part of those Men of whom the Council consists It is an improper speech for the will of the major part cannot be the will of the totality but plurality and if the will of the major part could be the will of the whole then were a part equal to the whole which is absurd and impossible by Not. 9. Eucl. lib. 1 And though he takes such pains about his Pacts and makes them so essential and precedent to all Civitates and that all Institutive Civitas is built upon yet such is Truths excellency that he overthrows it all where he says Quare tu appellas eum Tyrannum quem Deus Regem fecit 'T is true Cap. 12. ar 13. indeed if he be a King only God can make him so And if Civil power Pro. 8. 15. Isa 3. 4. had been artificial in the cause then must it necessarily be that some time may be instanced where and when this artifice was not For all arts depending and being made from mans understanding and reason there must be a time before this art was found out and if it were an art it is not to be imagined that it should alwaies in all times be practised every where in the habitable world And every man sees that sometimes several arts are esteemed by some men in one place and neglected by others in the same place and in other places not minded at all and a famous Invention or Art is much cryed up in one Age not minded and neglected in another whereas the mutual offices of Commanding and Obeying were always among men in all places ever since there were men in the world 'T is true therefore which Aristotle says that Nascitur dominus nascitur servus Lib. 1. Pol. Cap. 3. art 13. although he would have it contrary to reason and experience And by consequence the Kings of Denmark Poland and the Romans are rather Kings by courtesie as they call the sons of Dukes and the eldest sons of Marquesses and Earls and the Judges when they are upon the Bench Lords though they be none rather then Kings indeed And so the Emperor and Duke of Venice are rather Supreme Powers in imagination then truly so which made our Edward the Third to refuse the Empire and Henry the Fourth of France to scorn it And if it be true which he says as it is that God makes Kings then is it Cap. 7. art 15. false where he says that a Monarch may at his will declare his Successor Observ Sure this man would not have feared to have been of the Lady Jane's Conspiracie against Queen Mary the Lady Jane being declared Successor to Edward the Sixth by his last will and Testament Besides if it be true as it is which Sir Edward Coke says that Solus Deus haeredem facere potest non Co. Lit. sect 7. homo and this to Estates that descend by Humane Laws then sure no man can make an Heir to a Crown But if Mr. Hobbs shall ask me If power in Government were not originally from Pacts how it came first into the world I answer That I am not bound to give an account of things how they came to pass whereof there is no record It is enough for me to affirm That no time ever was wherein men did live together out of Society and Government Besides Society being natural it is an absurd question and a man may as well ask why God made the world in that order and frame that he hath or how he came to make Man a reasonable creature and all other irrational as why a sociable Well but if he shall say that Laws ought to be known and if Kings reign by Gods law then how can any man know that this man is King in this place and that man King in another place I answer That I am content to shew this man by Gods law to be King here and that man to be King there when any man shall shew me by any Humane law that any Individual man is heir to any Estate And if there be that excellencie in truth that a right Heir to the meanest Estate be rarely suppressed then is this excellencie of truth more perspicuous whenas I am confident that the right Heir to a Crown was never so suppressed but he was ever believed to be so by them who had never seen him and most hated him Besides Jus is duplex Jus proprietatis possessionis Jus ad rem and Jus in re And therefore any Prince who is possest of a Crown has a Title good enough against any man else but him who hath the Jus proprietatis or Jus ad rem And therefore ought no man upon penalty of Damnation to resist the Higher powers which are that is which are in possession if it does not clearly Rom. 13. 1. and evidently appear that this is only pretended power and force indeed to the dispossession and disinheritance of another against whose right and title no just exception can be taken Let this suffice here we shall take occasion to discourse hereof more hereafter I would fain know of Mr. Hobbs Who gave the People this power of making Kings or Civitates or what are the People that have or when was it that they had it At what age in pure nature shall any man claim this right of giving up his Will or be an Instrument of making this Civil Pact or who shall define this time Whether Women be not part of Mankind and have not Wills as much or more then Men and are not as liable to punishment for not observance or transgressing humane Laws as Men Whether it be not reasonable Posterity may not give up their Wills to another since they have not the
Fishes are animalia vivipara that is bringing forth their young ones actual living Creatures and do generate viviparorum more should in that vast body of the Ocean when as by reason of the grosseness of the Medium they cannot use their sight at any small distance to perceive when they are neer one another at the seasons of generation find one another To proceed herein were proper for Plinies natural History or Aristotles History of living Creatures All Creatures are either animalia nociva hurtful Creatures which prey upon and devoure other living Creatures or innocua which feed and eate upon such vegetives as grow and are renewed by the earth or water or sociabilia which are only Men who are better or worse then other living Creatures accidentally If they suffer themselves to be enslaved by their depraved passions and appetitions then they become worse than any hurtful Creature but if they by depressing their passions and ill affections rule their actions by reason they far transcend all other Creatures The end of Government is twofold either to preserve the governed in peace within themselves or to protect them from forraign force or power in neither of which respects is Government requisite to other Creatures besides Men For animalia nociva are solivaga and therefore no Government is required to keep them in Peace one with another whereas they do not company one with another And many other living Creatures who are not by nature hurtful do not keep in companies and therefore no Government to preserve themselves in peace is requisite to them neither It is an admirable thing to contemplate how nature has granted to these hurtful and robustious Creatures armes consentaneous to their force to protect themselves from outward force and violence of those Creatures who are enemies unto them as the Lyon his paws and tayle the Bear his paw the Fox Otter Brock c. their Teeth whereas other Creatures who are by nature denied those armes to defend themselves what a strange cunning and dexterity has nature given them in the preservation of themselves from those Creatures who are hurtful to them and prey upon them Those Creatures who live in Community one with another by desiring the same things and avoiding the same things to direct their actions to a common end that their companies are obnoxious to no seditions and therefore Government is not necessary to them neither and of them is Man usually Protector against their ravening enemies Men differ from other Creatures for they are neither Animalia solivaga not gregalia but sociabilia that is living in conversation and subordination and Man is born a living Creature apted potentially for society and alike naked and unarmed as one whom nature intended a sociable peaceful and politick Creature and to be governed rather by reason than force in all his actions and therefore has endewed him with hands and ingenuity that having by his ingenuity purchased himself necessaries he might with his hands cloathe feed and defend himself In all other Creatures the Laws of Nature that is those bounds which God by Nature has set them are securely obeyed and never transgressed by them and are only transgressed and violated by Man and therefore the Laws of Nature are not sufficient for the preservation of mankind in Peace for by reason of the discords which arise naturally in Men for Honor and preheminence Secondly the appetite of possessing all things Thirdly the desire to excell other Men in wisdome and policy and to that end are studious of novelty which causes seditions and civil warrs that they might be esteemed wiser then the men of this present Age or their predecessorsby reason of which present coersive humane Laws are necessary for preserving peace among Men that the feare of a present punishment may deter men from those things which because of their Infidelity and Atheisme they otherwise would not feare Isay this Humane Power from whence all Humane Laws are derived is from the Law of Nature and if it shall seem strange to any Man that it should be Humane and yet derived from the Law of Nature let that Man consider that only Man is a Humane Creature and does Humane and reasonable actions and yet it is from the Law of Nature that only Man is a Humane Creature and can do Humane and reasonable actions And the Fathers and Husbands power is Humane yet I think no Man before Mr. Hobbs did ever deny that they were from the Law of Nature I know in usual speech the supream power of Nations is called Politick power which is a mistaking of the cause for the effect for it is not the power which is politick in the cause but in the effect and exercise as take an instance of my meaning A Father hath divers Children of several dispositions one disposed to learning another endewed with bodily strength and averse from learning another hath not bodily strength yet a desire to learning but by reason of his gross Minerva is not probably qualified to attain to any great progress in it c. The Father breeds up his Studious Son in literature his Active Son which hath no disposition to learning he makes a Soldier or Seaman his Duller Child he binds an Apprentice to some Trade c. Though the Fathers power be Natural yet this exercise of it is Politick so though Regal Power be from the Law of Nature yet must the exercise of it be Politick And therefore Humane Laws and the exercise or Politick use of Humane Power cannot though the Power of all Kings be alike and from the Law of Nature be the same in several Nations but different according to the nature manners and dispositions of the Inhabitants And we see the same King governing in divers places by divers Laws accordingly as his Subjects are different in manners and dispositions Humane Laws therefore and the Politick use of Regal Power cannot be as the Laws of Nature are immutable and the same in all parts of the world but ought to take their origination from the nature and disposition of the Governed and are alterable as Mens vices and manners do alter The Method observed in the subsequent TREATISE and the Reason of it ALl Science all Learning and all Reasoning by the Judgment of Aristotle is begotten from pre-existing Principles which being indemonstrable in themselves do demonstrate them And since that all Society or Power and Subjection whatsoever is created by Divine or Humane Laws and since it is impossible there should be Lex Lata where there was not Jus Legislativum Superior and the cause of it In the First Book we treat of Rights Laws Virtues the Obligation of Laws and of Pacts Promises Vows Leagues and Gifts and from whom Men become obliged to them These things thus premised the Second Book treats of the Causes of all Humane Christian and Legal Society of Regal and Magistrates Power of the Three Species of Government viz. Monarchy Aristocracy and
an Intellectual creature 3. All Virtue is either Theological Moral Humane Familistical How manifold is Virtue Personal or Prudential 4. Virtue being by the definition the Dictate of Right reason from From whence Theological virtue is derived some superior cause or notion Theological virtue is a Dictate of Right reason from some revelation of God in the Scriptures which otherwise had been impossible for any man by the light of humane nature to have attained to By Theological virtues I do not mean only those three most eminent virtues of Faith Hope and Charity but all those actions of obedience due to them who have oversight of me in the Lord as a Christian and to whom I owe my obedience not by any Law of Nature but as commanded by God in the Scriptures 5. Moral Virtues are those Dictates of Right reason which flow from What are Moral virtues and from whence derived What are Humane virtues and from whence caused What are Familistical virtues What are Personal virtues that light of Nature engraven in the minds of Men for the conservation of peace and society among Men so long as they live in this world 6. Humane Virtues are those Dictates of Right reason by which Subjects Wives and Children conform their actions to the Laws or Precepts of Supreme powers Husbands and Parents 7. Familistical Virtues are those actions of Servants done in conformity to the commands of the Masters of Families 8. Personal Virtues are those actions which are dictated to divers men from principles of innate good nature of Temperance Continency Patience Liberality and Frugality whose contrary extremes are vices and sins 9. Prudential Virtues are not dictated from any Divine or Humane What are Prudential virtues and from whence derived Laws but from some Principles known to the understanding which are more or less as men are more or less intelligible whereby some Princes govern more prudently then others and some Masters of families govern their servants more prudently then others And these Virtues have not reference only to the government of Men but to other actions as Prudence in managing of an Estate is a Virtue or in mens governing their actions so that they are esteemed and not despised by other men are Virtues yet these actions are no where commanded or forbidden by any Divine or Humane Laws These Virtues are always placed in Empire not in Obedience 10. God having made Man a rational creature and endued him with The ratio finalis of all virtues and how they differ First of Theological virtues an immortal Soul capable of eternal happiness hath revealed himself supernaturally in the Scriptures to Men as reasonable creatures so that they directing their actions conformable to his precepts therein contained might by faith or believing on him hope for eternal happiness 11. The end of all Moral Virtue is that men may preserve peace and The end of Morality society so long as they live in this world And God hath made Man a sociable creature as well as intellectual and rational and therefore hath engraven these eternal and immutable Laws of Nature in the minds of all mortal men that by conforming their actions thereunto they might preserve peace and society with men And though these of themselves are not sufficient to pully man up to eternal happiness yet let no man hope that despising these Laws of the great God of Nature upon a pretended Faith he shall ever attain it 12. But because the Law of Nature does oftentimes command in Thesi The end of humane virtue only and Humane Laws ex Hypothesi as Thou shalt not steal and shalt give every man his due is from the Law of Nature but that this thing is mine and that thing another mans is by positive Humane laws So though Moral virtues be always the same yet Humane virtues differ accordingly as Laws in divers places are different Thus it is a Moral virtue in Wives and Children to honor and obey their Husbands and Parents but as a Humane virtue the doing of such a thing may be Virtue at one time and Vice at another as it is commanded or forbidden by the Husband or Parents So that Humane virtues in Subjects Wives and Children are necessary to the conservation of society where the laws or principles of such actions are not plainly repugnant to Divine laws 13. The end of all Familistical virtue is that Servants by all just and The end of Familistical virtues lawful means intend the good of their Masters and make no dissentions or discontents in their Families 14. God having made man after his own image as well in body as in The end of Personal virtues soul for He that sheds mans blood by man shall his blood be shed for in the image of God made he man It is not therefore to be expected that any man should without sin against God abuse the highest and noblest part of Gods creation All men therefore in the first place ought by all just and lawful means to do well to themselves and not by any excess or intemperance to abuse that body which God hath made in his own image 15. Theological virtues relate to the attaining of Eternal happiness The difference between Theological Moral Humane Familistical and Personal virtues Moral Humane and Familistical to the conservation of society and peace in their several places Personal virtues to the preservation of that body which God hath entrusted every man with keeping so long as he lives We have spoken of the end and difference of Prudential virtues Parag. 9. 16. In all prudent and profitable actions Prudentis est fortunam semper Whether just and moral actions or virtues are to be enquired into by fortune as are Prudential in concilio adhibere But that man who directs his just and moral actions to Fortune or the time and tide of mens affections shall soon be accounted a Weathercock and Time-server In all prudent actions or virtues there is no other obligation or penalty more then the reward or profit of the action and loss for the folly of imprudent actions But in just and moral actions men must consider their duties not profit and are obliged to them notwithstanding temporal loss or trouble CHAP. IV. Of Particular Moral Virtues 1. SInce that the Law of Nature is That there is one God infinitely Religion is the first and chief of Moral Virtues good to be worshipped and served and that all men should in their several stations endeavor by all just and lawful means to preserve Peace and Society in this World Then is Religion or the Publick Worship and Service of a Deity the first and chief of all Moral Virtues and so conspicuous was this Virtue in all ages and places to good men by the Light of Nature onely that it was always their first care to be in a Society of Men where God however misplaced in an Oak Osiris Iris Jupiter Apollo
it is impossible they should receive their origination and first power from the Pacts and Contracts of Men For where there is no precedent humane Law obliging men can neither make Pacts Contracts or Gifts nor have any thing to give and contract for And to suppose that humane laws must precede and oblige men to thei Contracts and Pacts and that Contracts and Pacts must precede humane laws and give them their power is most manifestly absurd and contradictory THE CONTENTS of the Second Book Chap. I. HAving thus far treated of Rights and Laws which are the prime and efficient cause of all Humane Christian and Legal Society We in the first Chapter of this Book proceed to declare the Causes of all Society Chap. II. This Chap. shews the cause and end of Regal power Chap. III. Declares the attributes of it and incidently the causes of Magistrates power Chap. IV. Compares the three species of Government viz. Monarchy Democracy and Aristocracy wherein the excellency of Monarchy appears above either of the other as well by reason and experience as by the institution of God and consent of the world Chap. V. Shews the internal causes disposing men to sedition as well from the Party governing as from the Subjects or party governed Chap. VI. Declares the causes and attributes of the Fathers power And Chap. VII The causes and attributes of the Husbands power In this Chap. is demonstrated that though the Fathers and Husbands power be from the Law of Nature yet may the exercise of them be restrained by the Supreme power of any place without any wrong or prejudice to them which could not be done without a violence upon the Law of Nature if the Fathers and Husbands power were an institution of God and Supreme powers an institution of Man Chap. VIII Contains the causes and attributes of Despotical or the Masters power wherein is declared that if it be impossible for any man to make another his Master then necessarily is it impossible any man should make another his Prince or Soveraign Chap. IX Treats of the causes and attributes of Ecclesiastical power DEFINITIONS 1. SOciety Aristotle in lib. 1. Pol. cap. 5. truly defines to be made up of many What is Society divided parts or persons so that there must necessarily be Unum quid quod imparet alterum quod pareat 2. There are six sorts of Society First of Supreme powers and Subjects How manifold is the Society of Men. Secondly of Magistrates and those committed to their care or government and this is most properly called the Civitas especially where the Magistrates and those in their jurisdiction have a priviledged or exempted authority peculiar to them and not the same with that which is not contained in their jurisdiction Such are the Societies of our Civitates Boroughs and Corporations in England where the Magistrates jurisdiction is exempt and priviledged from the ordinary jurisdiction of Magistrates where these priviledges and immunities are not Thirdly of Husband and Wife and this Society the Greeks called Gamaca Fourthly of Fathers and Children which is called Patrica Fifthly of Masters and Servants which is called Despotica Besides these there is a sixth Society which is proper only to Christians viz. of Bishops Curates and Congregations committed to their charge 3. Potestas est jus imperiale in aliqua persona cujus praeceptum continet What is power rationem obedientiae 4. There are four kinds of Powers viz. Divine Humane or Natural Legal How many kinds of powers are there What is Divine power and Ecclesiastical 5. Divine power or right of Command is that power which is by highest right solely and originally in God and incommunicable to any Creature from whence all other Powers are mediately or immediately derived 6. Humane power is a right of Command created immediately by God or What is Humane power immediately derived from the Law of Nature 7. Legal power is a right of Command which is not immediately derived What is Legal power from any positive or natural law of God but from some Humane law 8. Ecclesiastical power is an institution of our Saviour and left to continue What is Ecclesiastical power What is force or Tyranny in the Church of Christ until his second coming to Judgment 9. Force or Tyranny is an usurpation of Command of any Creature or company of Creatures not created by any law of God or Man Nor is it the commanding of one alone which makes Tyranny the very Grecians could account the Athenian Thirty to be Tyrants and so could the Romans the Decemviri and Triumviri And no question but it was malice and spight which made the Grecians call all Kings Tyrants and both Romans and Grecians to make all Kings to be Ravenous creatures And all those Kings who abuse their power are by men usually called Tyrants not justly I find no such title given to Saul Ahab Ahaz Nabuchadnezzar but Wicked and Idolatrous often Nor is a Father or Husband less a Father or Husband if they abuse their powers because they have a right of Command 10. Dominion or Government is the exercise of Command by any Creature What is Dominion or Government or company of Creatures who have a right or no right of Command So that though all Government or Dominion be the exercise of Command yet is not all Government the exercise of Power as the Dominion or Government of Thieves Robbers and Pyrates c. is the exercise of Command who yet have no right of Command 11. All Power is Right but all Right is not Power as Jus Proprietatis How Potestas differs from Jus. Usufructuarium is Right not Power Common Notion ALl Created Powers are from the Law of Nature or Divine posisive Institution or Humane Laws THE SECOND BOOK CHAP. I. Of Society or the mutual offices of Commanding and Obeying 1. IF all Commanding and Obeying had To command and to obey is no humane artifice or invention been an Humane artifice or invention then was there a time when Men lived out of Society and in a parity or equal condition without commanding and obeying But there is no such time recorded in Sacred or Prophane history wherein Men lived so or when or who first invented or introduced these offices of commanding and obeying Besides we see that Arts and Sciences are received in one place and not in another and in the same place and by the same men at one time and neglected at another But at no time or place did ever men live out of society or commanding and obeying All commanding therefore and obeying is no Humane artifice or invention 2. If then there was never any man born but was born in subjection To command and to obey is natural and all subjection being in the predicament of relation which must suppose something commanding and if all things which are not artificial or invented are natural Then is it as evident as that Homo
might not be aliened or made worse by the Possessor yet so that she left a gap open for herself and her Favorites to prey upon it which was after shut by King James and with great care secured by King Charls All this while grew up a Faction in Church and State which became the ruine of both For not only in the Church the Publique Liturgy Communion or Religion was vilified and defamed but the Governors reviled with all opprobrious names of Tyrannical Antichristian c. It is true the Majesty of the King was not so openly reviled yet was it insensibly daily undermined by them in which they were much assisted by a company of half-headed Lawyers who in all Assemblies distilled this doctrine into ignorant men That the Law was above the King and that they had Property against him in their estates and goods Whereby not only Citizens and Great places became generally inclined to this new doctrine of the Teachers and Lawyers but the Country-Gentleman thought himself independent from the King both in his life and estate the Yeoman cared not for the Gentleman and as little regarded the King so that the veneration of the Royal Name became every day more contemptible and despised all honor and reverence due to the King Church was converted unto these Patriots of their Countries Liberty and New Lights Nor could the Church relieve the Crown although the Governors were well-affected towards it being by all the Faction more hated than the King became despised until in the end the chief Governors both of Church and State not only became Victims to the rage and lust of seditious men but the Revenues of both a prey to their avarice And now what is left for this miserable Nation to expect having forfeited all Piety and Allegiance to Gods Church and his Anointed but after all this consumption of the Blood and Publique and Private Revenue of the Nation and having lost all Reputation and Commerce abroad for the future to be Turk-like governed by armed and hungry Soldiers without any probable hope of Redemption Object It may be it will be here objected That though poor and contemptible Princes be rarely long obeyed especially where their Subjects are opulent yet had the Church never so great veneration both for power and piety as when in the Primitive times it was poor whereas afterward when it became rich and mighty it did degenerate into many vices and heresies and lost much of estimation and piety which it had in its poverty Answ I grant that God did by his grace and power originally by a company of poor men and Fishermen against all the greatness of worldly power miraculously plant a Church and that those poor men sent by God were supernaturally inspired by his grace which not their poverty was the cause of their piety and sanctity and that they were so highly honored by primitive Christians yet sure when God hath supernaturally planted his Church it cannot be in reason expected he should preserve it always by miracle And sure those are very ungrateful men not to contribute ordinary means for the preservation of what God hath extraordinarily planted Nor is there any thing more vain then to imagine that men are better for being poor or that according to the ordinary course of things they will not be by men in general esteemed vile and contemptible who are so Nil habet infaelix paupertas durius in se Juveual Quâm quod ridiculos homines facit CHAP. VI. Of the Fathers power 1. UNumquodque resolvitur in id ex quo componitur Dust shall return to the Introduction earth as it was and the Spirit to God who gave it Eccle. 12. 7. It is not the good will and pleasure of the All-prepotent God that only the individuals of one age should see the greatness of his Majesty and power therefore he was pleased to create man as well as other Creatures in this inferior or be in a * If Adam had not been created in a Mortal State the Sacrament of the Tree of life had been a vain institution mortal state yet he endewed him generativa facultate that though he does dye in his person yet he should live in his posterity and as one generation passeth away so another commeth but the earth abideth for ever Eccle. 1. 4. 2. There is nothing more evident then that in perfect Creatures of The power of Parents alike over their Children which man is the most perfect that God is the prime and efficient cause or God working by naturall causes the Sun is the efficient cause and Male and Female the Instrumental Sol per hominem generat hominem See Harvey de generatione Animalium Cap. 33. Man and Woman therefore being the means whereby God does renew the species of Mankind and all Creatures having power over themselves in all things wherein they are not restrained by some natural or humane Law and every Child being alike part of either of his Parents the Power of Father and Mother is alike over their Children and so by consequence the subjection and obedience of every Child is alike due to Father and Mother And to honor thy Father and thy Mother is the First precept of the second Table of the Decalogue 3. Man and Wife being but one person and the Husband being the Why in Matrimony the power is in the Father head of the Wife and the Wife being in the power of the Husband the Husband hath the power and command as well of the Children as of the Mother yet the piety and observance of Children to their Mother is as much due as to their Father 4. Grotius cap. 5. art 2. de jure belli pacis out of Arist pol. 1. cap ult Grotius his opinion of the Fathers power eth 5. cap. 10. distinguisheth the Fathers power over Children into three times viz. 1. The time of their imperfect judgment 2. The time of their perfect judgment 3. The time when they are out of the Fathers family In the first all the actions of the Children are under the command of the Parents In the second time whenas judgment is matured by age and are of the family they are subject as part of the family In the third when he is matured by age and out of the family the Son is in all things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of his own right Yet he says and truly parag 5. The Fathers power so follows the Fathers person that it can never be pulled off nor transferred to any other for the Fathers power arising from generation is due to him by the Law of Nature and so always the same if not aliened by the act of God And therefore * Confuted Quando Ubi make no alteration in the Fathers power for it is the same when the Son is an Infant and when adult when he is part of the family and when not 5. Where the Law of Nature gives a
power which God hath given Fathers and Husbands by the law of Nature 7. The Husband being the head of the Wife she is in all respects of law The Wife has nothing proper against her Husband deemed civiliter mortua nor can take or purchase any thing during the coverture but whatsoever is given to the Wife is ex facto the Husbands Yet Marriage being a Sacrament by the institution of our Saviour and Ephes 5. 25 32. a Mystery of Christ and his Church and so the cognisance thereof due to the Ecclesiastical power the Church upon the penalty of Ecclesiastical censure may compell the Husband to allow his Wife Alimony if without sufficient cause he shall refuse to cohabit with her 8. If Poligamy had not been lawful before our Saviour Christs time Poligamy was lawful before our Saviour then had our Saviour been illegitimate being descended of Bathsheba when David had many other wives Nor can the argument drawn from the necessity of propagating Mankind take place when David reigned for there never was in so small a Continent so great a number of people as the Israelites were when David reigned as appears by the Number which Joab took and for which David was punished with so great a pestilence If it were before the divine law of our Saviour lawful every where for Annot. Men to have many Wives I do wonder why Mr. Hobbs cap. 17. art 8. de Cive says That our Saviour made no laws but the institution of the Sacraments which are Baptism and the Eucharist And if Matrimony be a Civil institution as he affirms then Poligamy is lawful for all Christians who are in subjection to the Turks c. where by the Temporal laws it is permitted and the Kingdom of Congo rejected Christianity for no other reason but because they were not allowed plurality of wives which Mr. Hobbs could easily have dispenced with I do challenge Mr. Hobbs to shew any one instance where ever in the Christian world before all things ran riot here in England since 1642. the Temporal power took cognisance of Marriage 9. Matrimony is the act of two free persons viz. neither precontracted What Matrimony is nor married nor within the degrees prohibited by God Levit. 18. of different sexes capable of performing the end of marriage mutually taking one another for Husband and Wife I N. take thee D. to be my wedded Wife I D. take thee N. to be my wedded Husband But this must be done publiquely and Banns of both parts publiquely pronounced three Holidays or a Licence procured from the Ordinary for dispensation with all the rites and solemnities injoined by the Church or else the Church takes no cognisance of it 10. Where the Matrimony is subsequent to the allegation there the Whether Matrimony be dissolvible Vinculum is dissoluble As if one man marries another mans Wife or a Husband his Wife living marries another or if the parties contracting or marrying be within the degrees forbidden by God or if either party were Lev 18. precontracted or frigid these necessarily preceding the Matrimony do dissolve the bond But where the matter or allegation is subsequent to the Matrimony there the bond of Matrimony cannot be dissolved but only a Divorce upon just cause is grantable to separate the Complainant à mensa à thoro The reason why in this latter case the Matrimony cannot be dissolved is because Marriage being an institution of God it is in the cause superior to any Humane law or act and so by consequence cannot by them be dissolved And indeed in proper speaking where the Matrimony is subsequent it is rather not done then dissolvible the persons marrying being personae incapaces for such an action 11. The Holy Ghost Ephes 5. 25 c. shews the duty of Husbands The duty of Fathers and Husbands And Cato though no lover of women did think it sacrilege in the Husband to strike his wife Plut. vita Caton cens No question the right and careful education of Children is the onely means by which Parents may hope to have any comfort of them here or hereafter for Train a child in the way when he is young and he will not depart from it when he is old says the Preacher Nor can Parents expect to have their Children virtuous if they be vitious themselves for with what face can any Father condemn his Child for any thing which he allows in himself Besides there is nothing ill which naturally Youth doth not more suddenly apprehend then Men therefore Maxima debetur puero reverentia si quid Juveval Turpe paras And ill habits are soon gotten by Children if they be not carefully observed and restrained and hardly if possibly left when they are Men. CHAP. VIII Of Domestical power 1. THere are three sorts of Families either by Affinity or Alliance How many sorts of Families there be or by Consanguinity or a Legal or Houshold-Family Of such a Family and of its Cause and Jurisdiction we shall in this ensuing Chapter treat 2. A Family is not the cohabitation of divers persons in one house A legal family is not the cohabitation of divers persons in the same house for then Inmates and Travellers c. were subject to the power of the Master and Host Besides subjection cannot be where it depends upon the will of the Subject when he will he may choose whether he will obey But it is evident that Inmates and Travellers may when they will cease their subjection by leaving of the house 3. A Family is contained in the mutual offices of commanding and What a legal family is obeying of several persons under one head in the same house And the same head may be of divers Families as when a Master keeps servants in two or more different houses 4. A Family may consist of Paterfamilias who is Father and Husband Of what persons a family in the largest sense is compounded and the head or commanding part of the family of Wife Children and Servants who are the obeying part of the family or of the Mistress of the family who commands and of Children and Servants who obey 5. But because a Family may consist where as parts of the Family In the more proper sense there is neither Father nor Mother Husband nor Wife nor Children A Family is properly where several Servants obey the same Master or Mistress in the same house 6. Servants are twofold either voluntarily serving with their consent Of Servants first given such as are those servants who for such wages serve their Masters for such a terme or where they serve whether they give consent or not as where men are slaves or apprentices The power which the head of the family has over his Servants is called potestas herilis or despotica the Masters or Mistresses power We speak first of Masters power over Servants serving for wages 7. It is impossible that any
cannot prove what he saith by the testimonies given the accuser may take the excommunication of the accused and let no man believe him concerning himself declaring upon another crime but a confession extorted by fear or fraud is invalid Let a Priest beware that whosoever confesses his sins to him he tell no body of them because he confesseth to him not to his neighbors or strangers which thing if he do let it be set down and repent all the days of his life ignobly in Pilgrimage And if at any time a Bishop says any man hath confessed to him any proper crime and he deny it let not the Bishop think it does not belong to his injury that he is not believed for himself alone and if for scruple of his conscience he says he will not communicate to him oftentimes good men are silent and suffer the ill things which they have known because they are forsaken in their documents and cannot allow of their Judges for although they are true yet are they not believed of the the Judge unless they be proved by certain appearances But we cannot at all forbid men from the Communion although this Prohibition be not mortal but medicinal unless men confess of their own accord and be convicted by judgement From hence it is such a man is to be named as the Apostle says who confesses or is convinced by ordinary judgement but if by judgement it cannot be taken away let it rather be tolerated lest some man in perversly avoyding ill men departing from the Church should go before them to Hell The Communion does not defile any man by partaking the Sacraments but the confession of their deeds other mens sins hurt not him who lives well in the Church Of habit and clothing we read nothing commanded by God what things are for pomp are forbidden And if you shall ask Canst thou not have an humble heart in a proud dressing as Hester God not onely in his anger but also pitty overthrows sinners And they are overthrown two ways either as the Sodomites where the men were punished for their sins or as the Ninivites where the very sins of the men were punished and destroyed and all men are alike to beloved but you cannot alike profit with all these are rather to be advised with who for the opportunity of time and places and of other things are more strictly joyned together To thee either is guilty both he which hides the truth and he which tels a lie because this will not profit and that desires to hurt arrogance is not so to be shunned that truth should be left He that at any time shall accuse a Priest before friendly admonition to his Judges or Secular Judges let him be excommunicated If a Bishop shall have strayed from the faith or secretly admonished of his subjects hath appeared incorrigible then let him be accused at the Archbishops or Apostolical seat for his other actions he ought rather to be tolerated then corrected If any Bishop be accused for certain crimes let him be heard of all the Bishops in his Province not condemned nor judged before he has lawful accusers present and of his Province not aliens and he may not refuse Judges elected by him unless there be an Appeal which thing is lawful for them designed for punishment but no affliction or the keeping the thing detained ought to injure the Appellant or the vitiated Cause ayded by remedy of the Appeal Some men have demanded a year and six moneths to be granted for filling up the Machinations of unskilful men and to prepare their Reasons and confirm Witnesses and seek Counsel some men a year in which time most men agree but less then six moneths cannot be found But if Bishops or Clerks were ejected by force or fear or first dispoyled of their goods let all their goods be legally restored to them and have so much time as appeared they were disseised before that they be Canonically called in to Judgement Gregory in the Decrees A Presbyter or Deacon or any Clerk accused by the people if the Witnesses who should prove the truth were not certain of the crime committed let an Oath be in the mean and bring him for a witness of the purity of his innocency to whom all things are naked and open Also this thing St. Sixtus the Pope remembers he had done to one Bassus although made guilty by much examination he could sufficiently evade the suspicion and avoid the emulation Jerom upon Jeremy lib. primo not giving this to them who would not or of their own accord had not made choice of making a form An Oath ought to have companions Truth Justice and Judgement if those things be wanting it is not an Oath but perjury For if any one by compulsion be compelled to abjure that thing which for many years he hath quietly held the perjury shall not be by him swearing but by him compelling It makes not a man guilty where the minde is not guilty Let no man circumvent or deceive himself He who by a false stone swears is perjured by whatsoever art of words any one swears God so takes as he to whom men swear does understand But without doubt it is a less evil to swear truly by a false God then to swear falsly by a true God for by how much more that by which men swear is more holy so much more punishale is perjury Who exacts an Oath it is much to the purpose if he knows that to be a false Oath or not knows or knows and gives sentence the Laws are mine as my faith stands I dare not say it is no sin yet it is a humane temptation if he knows him to have done it and compels him to swear it is Homicide Siquis juret falsumte sciente si te non audierit utrum sit procedendus si proditus periculum mortis incurrat difficillima questio est cui plus noceat illi cui juratur an Sacerdoti Mihi videtur quod ille cui magis prodest vel obest veritatem jurare necessitate cogente non est peccatum An Oath is not to be kept when bad it is unadvisedly pronounced The Oath of a son and daughter the father not knowing it and Vowes of a Monk the Abbot not knowing of it and the Oaths of a childe are void Of the Pleas of the Church belonging to the King Cap. 11. There are some Pleas of Christianity in which the King hath part in this manner If the King should suffer that he who in the Church hath committed Homicide let him come to amendment First let him restore to the Bishop and King the price of his Nativity and so he may inlaw himself and then let him dispose five pounds for the peace of the Church and seek to be reconciled to the Church as belongs to it and fully make amends both to Kindred and Donation If any man detains the right Tenth let the Sheriff of the Bishop and King and of
the Scots no whit edified by his concessions the next year upon no cause given by the King they not only arm but enter the Nation in open hostility from his granting them their concessions the English Faction urge his granting all things how dishonourable soever even to the shedding of humane blood nor would they have stayed there had not the Kings utmost necessities put him upon other resolutions of seeking his preservation otherwaies then by granting all the exercise of the Militia and Regalities to those men who made so bad use of his precedent benefits and favours Machivel in the 26. chap. lib. 1. de repub advises every new Prince that The Kings cause was most prudent as well as just unjustly possesses the City or Region of another that by how much he understands himself more weak to conserve his Empire either by lawfull ruling or by instituting a free Common-wealth by so much the more he intends this only that as he is a new Prince so in his Principality he does innovate all things that he create new Magistrates marked by new names and to them he choose new men that he distribute the goods of the rich to poor men and make them rich And as it is reported of King David so it may be said of him He hath filled the hungry with good things and the rich he hath sent empty away c. and the reason he gives is that no man in his Region that holds any thing but must confesse he obtained it of the Prince But if he be so great at policy in Princes who unjustly possesse anothers right to innovate all things then in reason besides the justness of it there can be no greater prudence in Princes who reign by inherent birth-right and to the wrong and prejudice of no man to rule and govern by the old received and established Lawes of the Nation to innovate nothing where there is no apparent necessity neither in Church or State in Lawes or Religion yet who hath not seen the most Saintlike and Glorious Monarch of the Western World whose right was derived from innumerable ancestors nor was there upon the face of the earth any one that could make any colourable pretence of right to his Crown prosecuted arraigned condemned and executed by his own naturall Subjects and his Queen and Posterity banished for no other reason but because he did endeavour to have governed and protected them by the known and established Lawes of the Nation So little avails the skilfulness of the Pilot how good great or just soever if the wind of divine favour wherewith eternall providence governs mortall affaires help not to bring our actions to their desired Port Sir Edward Coke in the Pleas of the Crown Cap. Petty Treason prop. sin A short view upon the 3. Nations since they cast off their obedience observes that in perusall of all books Histories and Records it was never found that Treason did ever attain the desired end but did alwayes prove fatall destructive to the undertakers Let any man but see Gods judgments upon the Kirkmen of Scotland and the Roman Catholicks of Ireland if they be not either vagabonds abroad or the most miserable slaves in the world at home for although it so pleased the divine providence that their iniquities prevailed against the King yet did the divine vengeance overtake them by a third faction so new contemptible and obscure that it was not only in their undertaking not feared but in the beginning never heard of in the world It is true indeed the English Presbyterians who had most basely accepted a canting thing called the Covenant from the Kirkmen of Scotland and as injuriously imposed it upon their fellow Subjects have not been so highly chastised in the generall by them as they in Scotland the Roman Catholicks in Ireland have yet were they so far from attaining their ends that since all this Nation abounded with factions that was the most hated and despised by all other Nor were the other Factions much more reconciled and true to one another then to the Presbyterians for the Army commanded by Oliver Cromwell turned out the Rump of the Long Parliament which headed the Independent party and after Cromwells death the Army receives the Rump and displaces his posterity and surely in this world is not to be found in any family so many and so great distractions and dissentions as were in the late Protectors nor did the Rump of the late Long Parliament maintain their long fought for and new restored Dominions but were rejected by those creatures that did restore them with very small hopes of ever attaining to it again Yet did the Rump after reassume their supremacy and proceeded as high and arrogantly as if they had never done wrong but suffered all injustice and wrong by their interruption when not only the Treasure of this Nation was exhausted and all Crown Church and Delinquents Lands and Compositions converted and consumed but the whole traffique of the Nation interrupted and destroyed And if it were so dangerous a thing to a Nation for one Faction to be formidable in Church or State how dangerous was it where there is no visible Church and nothing but Factions in all the State Although man by nature be a sociable creature and men do and ever did since there were any records of time live in society by right or usurpation to something superior to either the Fathers or Masters Power yet since the exercise of all power is politique humane or voluntary and therefore divers Princes govern by divers Lawes as they sort with the natures and dispositions of their Subjects and not only so but all Princes govern their own Subjects by differing Lawes according to their site and nature of their Subjects for it were a most unreasonable thing that the same Lawes should be imposed upon Mediterrane places where are observed in Maritime or that the Laws and Usages of the City of London should be required to be observed in every Country Village c. And since that some Nations doe almost without contradiction upon all occasions obey the Lawes of their Princes with out dispute as the Muscovites Armenians Persian Indians c. others scarce ever unlesse they be governed by their ancient received Laws ordinarily in extraordinary cases by Laws passed in some publick Assemblies as the Germans Swedes Polanders and Danes others are governed peaceably by their ancient received Laws in the usuall administration of Justice and in extraordinary cases doe admit of new ones having them rarely passed in publick Conventions such are the Italians Spaniards and French and this doth not proceed from any abject baseness or meanness of spirit for in the world are no where found men more generous and valiant And some are rarely governed long in peace although governed by old Lawes ordinarily and the consent of the major part of the Freeholders as they conceive by their representatives in passing new ones as
should have disputed without an Adversary for me But when he makes all men Jure naturali which is superior and the cause of all Laws of Nature to be equal and in a parity of condition and every man by his own natural right to have a power over every man and to kill and destroy them whensoever it seems good unto him and yet without any sin and that this State is only to be cured by the Laws of Nature of his own making although he would have them to be Divine Laws and contrary to Natural rights is such a monstrous Paradox and absurdity as I wonder any Ingenuous man should assent to it Under the title of Empire he is not less wild and extravagant in his concessions to the thing be it King or Court created by Do or Dedi and not Dabo or Faciam For he makes it not only Soveraign Judge of all Ecclesiastical as well as Civil causes but also impossible to command any thing contrary to the Law of Nature Yet he makes the Law of Nature the Law of God and this Creature of creatures to be so infallible that it is impossible to command any thing contrary to it It is not worth the examining what he would have under the title of Religion for men say the man is of none himself and complains they say he cannot walk the streets but the Boys point at him saying There goes HOBBS the Atheist It may be therefore the reason why in all his Laws of Nature he allows no place for the Worship and Service of GOD. But it is time to examine the particular Articles upon which this Body De Cive is built 1. His marginal Note upon Art 3. Cap. 1. is Homines naturâ aequales esse inter se Observ There is no one Proposition in the world more false then this nor more destructive to all faith and truth of Sacred History For whereas he says that by nature Men are equal to one another if the Scriptures be true that God made Adam an Universal Monarch as he says as well over his Cap. 10. art 3. Wife and Children as other Creatures and that since Adam God did never create any Man but the species of Mankind was continued by generation and that as he says Primogeniture is preferred by the Law of Cap. 3. art 18. Nature which Cap. 3. Art 29. is immutable then it is impossible that Cap. 4. art 15. since Adam any two Men in the world can be equal where God does not make them so Indeed if Mr. Hobbs had been an Athenian who stiled the Men of Observ 2. Attica 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men of the same Land or a Peripatetick who held that Men and the other things of the World were from Eternity as well as the World or an Egyptian who held that from the example of divers creatures generated out of the river Nile Men at first were generated from equivocal generation or that Men had sprung out of the ground fungorum more there might have been some small semblance for his opinion 2. His Argument to prove the Natural equality of all Men is Aequales sunt qui aequalia contra se invicem possunt At qui maxima possunt nimirum occidere aequalia possunt Ergo Homines natura aequales inter se His minor Proposition is no where proved and I am sure contrary Observ Gen. 9. 6. to what God says Whoso sheddeth mans blood by man shall his blood be shed for in the image of God made he man 3. Nature hath given to every Man a Right to all things Cap. 1. art 10. Observ What thing is mine naturali jure as he says or lege naturali is mine so that it is impossible it should be aliened or made anothers by any act of my will or the will of all the men in the world For natural causes do not depend upon voluntary humane actions and therefore the natural right which Nature has given to every man remains still with every man 4. Filium in statu naturali intelligi non posse Annot. art 10. Observ And therefore from Adam to our Saviour could there be no such natural state For S. Luke cap. 3. gives a Genealogie of Adams sons and sons sons to our Saviour And since I do not think Mr. Hobbs can shew that ever there was such a state in the world 5. The state of Man in Nature is hostile And cap. 8. art 10. he says Art 12. Men in the state of Nature may kill one another so often as it seems good unto them And therefore he must invent and seek to make himself in a better condition then God hath made him and that forsooth is by seeking Art 15. cap. 1. Observ Peace which he says is the first Law of Nature Is it not strange that a thing invented and made by the wit and will of Man and that contrary to the state and condition in which God hath made Man should here prove to be a Law of Nature which is the Law of God And is not more strange that God hath made Man upright and he hath Observ 2. Eccles 7. 27. sought out many inventions and yet Man should have need of Mr. Hobbs his help to invent and make him in a better state then God hath made him or else he says his conservation cannot be long expected Art 15. Neither is it possible in such a state where all men may kill one another Observ 3. and where all things are alike and common to all men that men should make any pacts or contracts one with another For besides that where men have nothing proper there men cannot make pacts or contract for any thing also where there is no precedent humane Law obliging there cannot any man be obliged or bound to any thing by his pact or contract for to be bound is in relation and must presuppose something which does bind but if nothing binds me but my Will which is a contradiction I may unbind me when I will for my Will is free I deny that any man or any company of men can will any thing to be Observ 4. a Law to themselves For Omnis potentia activa est principium transmutandi aliud And therefore the act of no mans Will can have a power or obligation upon himself and by consequence cannot any man or company of men will or make another who shall give them Laws for Nemo potest transferre id in alium quod ipse non habet 6. Legem naturalem esse dictamen rectae Rationis Cap. 2. art 1. Observ Wold any man think that these Critiques and pretended Masters of Reason did either understand Reason or Logick If Lex naturalis be dictamen rectae Rationis I ask of Mr. Hobbs what is the reason of it If it be a prime cause or principle then by the authority of Aristotle Eth. lib. 6. cap. 3. 6. does it constitute the