world without a Law and a common Power over him and others the Law is that writ in their hearts and this is it which St. Paul speake's Rom. 2.15 Which shewe's the law written in their hearts that law of Nature that practique law which is writ in the heart of every man and this common Power is GOD and therefore as St. Paul speakes there their Conscience also bearing witness and their thoughts the mean while accusing or excusing one another where there is evidence accusing excusing there is supposed a common Power so that there is a Common Power and this secretly acknowledged by men and that he hath given them certain lawes for the breach of which there is a horror and dread insomuch as a man cannot live or it is a prodigie to see a man without all Conscience of the principal and fundamentall rules of reason although men may doe and act against those Lawes yet untill a long custom of living have hardned their hearts or some such wicked principles as his have by degrees stollen an approbation in their their understandings by degrees I say for I think it not possible to be done in an instant untill then it is not pospossible for men to sin against these without an accusation of their Consciences He proceed's Sect. 8. Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal vertues In a war actually waged force is of great use and may well be called one of the best hinges upon which war is moved yea if we take force not for strength but violence as I think he doth but in the posture of war or in war only in expectation violence is the chiefe support of all injustice but certainly it is most improperly called a vertue in any but a most forced and violent way for vertues are those things which perfect the soule which make the work and worker good but no force doth that neither doth it assist in doing but it is indifferent to good or bad then againe force even in war may be a help to increase the wickednesse of it if the war be unjust it is doubly evill which is fortified with force If the acts of that war be cruell it is doubly bloudy which is effected by force And then for fraud although stratagems are lawfull yet falshood in war is wicked which is comprehended under that notion of fraud as to promise one thing and doe another all Stratagems have a double sense by which the enemy deceive's himself taking the visard from the true face but they having a true face discernable are not all visards and forces where there is no war engaged in but only some private end or design of one man against another they are in themselves wicked and provoke the just vengeance of a war from the injured party upon them He should have said valour and prudence were cardinal vertues in war but force and fraud are these degenerated and when they get these names of force and fraud they never retaine that excellent nature of being Vertues Sect. 9. He urgeth further Iustice and Injustice saith he are none of the faculties neither of the body nor the mind I think if he take Faculty as he seem's to doe for an innate quality no man ever said they were therefore his proof is needlesse when he come's on if they were they might be in a man that were alone in the world as well as his Senses and Passions although they are not innate faculties but acquisite habits I meane the vertue justice or the vice injustice yet the habits may be when they are acquired with that man who is alone and when he is alone though to act accordingly require's a present Object now denominations are given from the habits not the acts He proceed's They are qualities that relate to men in society not in solitude our dispute is of a third sort of men neither in such Society as a civill policy nor a Solitude but men without all relations of being under one common sublunary governance and yet men cohabiting in the same neighbourhood where may be perpetrated those horrid and unjust actions of Murder and Theevery c. And again although the acts of Justice doe suppose other men to doe justice upon yet it is other men not other men in the same City or polities and when by the use of those acts a habite is got it remaine's in Solitude Sect. 10. He draw's another Conclusion Hence thus it is consequent also to the same Condition that there be no propriety no dominion no mine and thine distinct but only that to be every mans that he can get and for so long as he can keep it The wickednesse of this Proposition will best appeare betwixt two States two neighbour Nations they certainly have distinct Dominions and it is injustice for one to take by force from the other or detaine by force what he hath gotten ill which is against all the consent of men from the beginning of the world now these two Nations are without any other coercive power in this world and from that reason are justly paralleld by him to such men as he formerly spake of and therefore these Nations should have no propriety as he explaines himself not in any thing Consider therefore Gen. 12. and the 20. Chap. How in two places Abraham's wife Sarah was like to have been taken from him by the Kings of those Nations where he lived but God punished them for it and they acknowledged it would have been a great sin to have layne with another mans wife Mr. Hobbes would have pleaded with God there is no propriety in any thing All men have title to all things where is no coercive power upon earth there is no injustice the woman is any mans who can get her by fraud or force so long as he can keep her they who have no common power above them as these had not to make Lawes which might appropriate interests to particular persons these are bound to no law nor have any propriety but such as force gives them and then both Abimelek and Pharaoh or other of them might lawfully have kept Sarah Abrahams wife from him but the Principles of the law of Nature say it was unjust and they did not doe it Thus it fared concerning the propriety of Wives now we will examine what propriety men had in Estates where was no such humane authority without doubt the first that ever gave outward Lawes to governe a Nation by was Moses and I conceive the Decalogue to be like our Magna Charta which was not a new law but a briefe and pithy expression of what was the old law by which this people was governed so were the Ten Commandements not a new law but an expression in tables of that morall law of nature which was writ in the heart of men before and practised before his time in particular this of Stealing which injured the possessor of Meum tuum
20 31 322 ACTS 2 24 247 2 36 350 11 2 320 15 1 ibid. 2 c. 16 9 71 20 17 292 20 28 ib. 28 2 149 ROM 1 5 136 1 10 87 1 18 128 21 1 19 334 20 2 15 158 334 4 13 369 4 18 136 19 16 29 ibid. I. COR. 2 8 354 2 10 388 2 14 372 6 18 299 6 20 300 8 5 346 348 8 6 ibid. 9 28 269 12 4 390 15 50 372 II. COR. 1 22 390 3 6 389 4 4 347 5 1 242 12 4 242 GAL. 5 24 269 EPHES. 1 14 390 2 10 365 PHIL. 3 19 347 3 20 242 II. TIM 1 10 389 2 13 327 HEB. 1 3 408 1 10 109 11 12 2 5 378 9 12 356 11 1 242 12 1 247 I. PET. 3 20 388 21 II. PET. 3 13 378 I. Epist. St. JOHN 1 2 340 1 1 341 2 REVEL 1 8 114 2 8 320 19 3 329 21 19 338 20 c. 22 13 114 Observations Censures and Confutations Of divers Errours in M R. HOBBES HIS LEVIATHAN Chap. 1. Chap. 2. Of Humane Nature CHAP. I Of Sense its cause c. particularly of Sight Sect. 1. I Let pass his Introduction although very obnoxious to censure and first encounter his first Chapter which seems to be the foundation of what followes but how unfit to support such a heavy building will appear in the examining The Title of this Chapter is Of Sense and he begins with a definition of the thoughts of Man single which he saith are every one representation or appearance of some quality or other accident of a body without us called an Object In this observe his first mistake that he makes a mans thought nothing but a representation and he brings no proof for what he affirms nor answers such objâ—ctions as are brought by Philosophers against it but as if his Book were writ by him for the Novices of Pythagoras and his authority were enough he would have it swallowed without chewing but that this is true in no thoughts of men whether intellectual or sensual is most apparent to him who shall consider that when a man sleeps or indeed is attent upon other business waking although both visible and audible objects are presented to him yet he thinks not of them nor discerns them so that a mans thought is more then a representation And to him who shall answer that this is for lack of attention I object he confutes himself for then thought is not onely a representation but something more a cogitation of that man which is an act of the soul and certainly as he himself phraseth it the thought of man is an act of mans but this representation is an act meerly of the object and therefore cannot be the thought of man It is true that in every thought of man there is something appearing but mans thought is not that apparition but the apprehension of that appearance and some way or other some judgment of it the original or first thought is sense concerning which he consents with the stream of Philosophers that nihil in intellectu quod non prius fuit in sensu one way or other But here he cites another Book where he hath written more at large of this matter I shall apply my self to both that is named Humane Nature or the Fundamental Elements of Policy chap. 2. But because I find some things in one which are not in the other errours enough in both I shall treat of them apart and first of this piece of Leviathan Sect. 2. Here first he undertakes to set down the cause of Sense as if it had but one as indeed by his Philosophy it might seem to have this cause he makes to be the external object which presseth the Organ proper to each sense c. this pressure he followes to the brain and heart I wonder which way from the eye or ear it gets to the heart there this pressure caused a resistance or counter-passion or endeavour of the heart to deliver it self mark now the brain which doubtless is the fountain of sense is left out which endeavour because outward seemeth to be some matter without consider the strange uncouthness of this language if there be such an endeavour which universally cannot be true yet this endeavour is inward although that which presseth it be put out like a man who thrusteth another out of doors that endeavour to thrust him out is within although the man be thrust out all his endeavour must be within unless he follow him out of doors which I think he will not affirm of the brain or heart Secondly consider that it is impossible that the heart or brain should be so displeased with all apparitions although they press them as to endeavour to be delivered of them for there are some things of this nature as sweet Musick Tast Beauties in visible objects in all senses some objects so grateful to the Organ yea heart or brain yea all that they cannot chuse but delight in them yea hug and embrace them with all kindness if so why should they endeavour to expell them yes he may say because they presse them I ask how do the brain or heart discern that pressure All discerning is either by sense or understanding no understanding before sense it must therefore be discerned by sense and then sense must be before there be any sense for he makes sense not to be untill that which pressed be thrown out These are unheard-of discourses amongst Philosophers but his opinions do confute that saying Nihil dictum quod non fuit dictum prius and therefore I must be excused for producing new objections to such opinions consider then that last clause of the former sentence which endeavour being outward seemeth to be some matter without First I have shewed the endeavour must be inward next let us consider how this endeavour can appear to be somewhat without according to him this endeavour expelled that which pressed the brain or heart but which way can this endeavour look like some matter without I am confident that neither any other nor he himself understands what he writ but he would write somewhat to amuse a Reader if he had said the expelled Species or I know not what he calls it that which pressed did seem to be some matter without it had lookt like reason although but like it but to say the endeavour did seem to be some matter without was a strange kind of unreasonable speech but he goes on and I mean to follow him close Sect. 3. And saith he this seeming or fancy is that which we call sense and consisteth as to the eye in light or colour c. this seeming to what doth it seem that which seems seems to somewhat either the soul or the powers of the soul the organs or heart or brain now if it seem so to any Agent whatsoever that act on which apprehends this seeming must be the sense not the seeming
Power invisible feigned by the mind or imagined from tales publikely allowed but it is the worship due to God and this worship is when it is as it ought to be accompanied and attended with reverential feare and awe of that Infinite Excellency and this makes us devote our selves in all holy waies to his service but if these things we feare be lesse then God although we may devote our selves or any thing is ours to them it is not Religion nor in any way doth it introduce Religion So that if the thing we feare have in it the estimation of Divine Excellency Devotion to it is an Act of Religion not a Seed if it have not that estimation it is an act of some Reverence or other habit but no way a Seed of Religion for a Seed precedes the fruit and introduceth it which this doth not Sect. 5. His fourth and last Seed is taking things casual for Prognostiques In all these according to his scornfull derision rather then definition of Religion he makes â—he Seeds of it nothing but Errour and Folly no wonder that the Tree should be so weak and rotten when the very Seeds are corrupted This Seed he applies Page 56. only to the Religion of the Gentiles although in general with the rest it was uttered of all Religion and so exprest as I have shewed Indeed if he should speak it of the true Religion it were most impiously wicked and would imply that the very Prophecies in the old and new Testament which were a true and reall Seed of Religion were but casual things and not fore-seen by God and revealed to his Prophets But I wil take him in the best sense that he can be taken that the taking things casual for Prognostiques were a seed of those false Religions and then I say first for the Oracles men did not therefore beleeve that there were Gods and so worship them because of their oraculous sentences but because of their beliefe that these were Gods they were confident that they spake truth and so expounded them according to the event whatsoever it was For the Sibyls I might say the like if they were such as the other and although he imagined these but feigned whose Copies we have yet that there were such is evident in Story and that they prophecied such things as could be applyed to none but our Saviour which were not to be interpreted Casual events but Prognostiques real and although the beliefe in them for a great while was a fruit of Religion for because men believed they were Prophetesses and inspired by God therefore they beleeved what they said yet afterwards as it haps in Trees so did it with their Prophesies that which was the fruit of one was the seed of another so these Prophesies which were a fruit of Religion before were a seed of Religion in planting the Christian Church and often made use of by the Fathers an Argument against the Idolatrous world to perswade them to Christianity but it was not as he speakes a taking Casual things for Prognostiques For the other things he there reckons up I guess them for the most part unhappy illusions and the fruit of Superstition not the seeds of Religion or else mistakes of second Causes which in no sense conduce to Religion as Horoscopy Presages and the like CHAP. XIV What the seed of Religion Concerning the chaine of causes What of God to be known Of finite and infinite The first mover The sound doctrine of Eternity c. Sect. 1. CErtainly the sole immediate seed of Religion is the assurance that there is a God of an infinite excellency governing all the world for therefore men perform Religion to him but that which propagates this naturally is first without doubt an innate principle born in and with a man which naturally every man hath as soon as he hath reason and there never was Nation or society of men found in the world which denied it It is true there may be now and then by the suggestions of the Devill a man found that with malicious reason hath laboured to diswade this Principle but that is not material There are Errours and Monsters in the morall part of man as well as in his natural This Gentleman who hath by nature the sight of Colours and ability to discern them yet hath studied reasons to make men beleeve he sees none There is nothing so abhorring to Reason that malicious Reason doth not oppose but such a truth as this Quod ubique semper et ab omnibus hath been held cannot be other then natural and whereas he can shew one man breaking this rule I can shew him a hundred that have no use of reason at all and a thousand that have lost it so that as such a man as he is a rarer sight then those so he may well be reckoned amongst the worst of fooles and mad-men and therefore the Psalmist Psal. 14.1 saith The fool hath said in his heart there is no God and he himself in this Chapter pag. 58. affirmes That an opinion of a Diety and Powers invisible and supernatural can never be abolished out of humane nature but that new Religions may be made to spring out of them So that this Seed is so naturally and firmly rooted in mans heart that it cannot be extirpated by any thing that doth not likewise with it extirpate reason Sect. 2. But because although this is natural yet some men by the wickednesse of malicious reason have endeavoured to wither it therefore other Children of Nature have endeavoured to cherish this root by watering it with the strength of invincible reasons drawne from the chaine of Causes which suppose a seed or a tree first and that first to be created not generated for if generated then it requires a preceding tree or seed and then that was not first and so in all the effects in the world But these men pretend an Eternity in the world and so in the propagation and causation of Natural things that there may be an infinity of these causations from one to another which is almost impossible to be conceived for then there should be an Infinite number of Causes which cannot be for then Robert who is now born should have no more Paternities or Precedings in causes then Adam had for if there should be an infinite Number of Causes preceding Adam then there can be no addition to it for what can receive addition is not Infinite it hath a bound to it and then all the Causations from Adam to Robert are nothing for if you should imagine in these five or six Thousand yeares there may have been so many hundred generations more then were before I can answer no the other was infinite for should you fill this sheet with Ciphers and head them with the figure of one I can make all these Ciphers nines and the figure of one Nine and make nine Millions of such sheets and yet all this
yea it is more dangerous by so much as men have more wit to effect revenges with But let us look back and we shâ—ll find that Feare is not where is no probability that the feared thing should happen not the possibility but the probability causeth feare now then when a man is possessed of any thing if the new commer to plant by him offer him no disturbance what probability is there that he should be disturbed by him men are reasonable Creatures and sociable without society they can have no happinesse in this world they know that if they should have such feare there could be no peace to men and therefore without injustice done or violence offered or menaced men doe not feare but rejoyce at such vicinity if the possibility of injury should provoke men to such violence as he speaks of men might feare their servants their Children and must by anticipation as he speaks presently take them away and no man can live secure so long as there is another man for there is a possâ—bility of destruction to come to any man from any man although not a probability Let us look back therefore and see that there is in the heart of every man a thought of a GOD who amongst other infinite excellencie hath punitive justice to whom vengeance belongs and there is a secret consent to that great Axiome such measure as you mete shall be meted to you againe this keeps the universal kind of man in some awe from perpetuating such barbarous acts as he entitles them unto and unless now and then by some prodigious monster we see them not violate these lawes in those high kinds which he surmiseth they doe All that he writes now I suppose to be but like rubbidge cast in the Reader 's way to hinder his assault upon his Castle of mischief which followes I lightly remove them now but will place my Battery strongly presently but because I have spoke only of such cases where one is possâ—ssor and the other come's with a desire to what he possesses the case may be otherwise where two persons shall come with equal desire to enjoy the same place and equall title that is neither hath occupancy and to this I say they will either debate it by reason or else fight it out and the strongest arme will get possession and with that right not by Conquest for that gives no title but by occupancie and it will be unjust for any to meddle with it whilest it is in his possession Thus much sleightly to these things premised by him to usher in his unhappy Conclusions The rest which he saith in order to them may be looked upon through the glasse of what I have already writ and will appeare of no force I shall therefore to avoid tediousness step to Pag. 62. where he delivers this unheard of Doctrine untill by him uttered CHAP. XX. The Condition of Warre what or what sort of men not in it c. HEreby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common Power to keepe them all in awe they are in that condition is called Warre and such a warre as is of every man against every man First I will examine that Phrase whilest men live without a common Power to heep them in awe if this be understood as he phraseth it of all kind of power then there is no such time for there is a power Divine which alwaies hath an invisible rod which keeps all men in awe from perpetrating things against that law which is written in their hearts but if it be understood as his discourse seemes to intimate of such a Power as is humane we must then pâ—sse over all men in their Infancy whom although they may have discontents and feares and hopes concerning their Parents and their Parents concerning them yet their natures are framed in such necessities of their Parents and their Parents look downe upon them with hearts so filled with kindness and sweetnesse and this so setled by nature that although that disposition may be hindred in its operation sometimes from working its proper effects yet it is seldome or never destroyed from its being and therefore men in that estate are most peaceable and free from warre We must likewise leave men linked in that domestique bond of Matrimony betwixt whom although there may be discontents yet there cannot properly be said hostility And we will take men as is hardly ever known divers single persons without any relation one to the other but that of humanity by severall wrecks cast upon the same uninhabited coast and let us think of these men whether they are all at a warre one with another before they have done or received any injury one from another Sect. 2. In this Condition I am confident that these men would be in a state of peace rather then warre and if one by chance should see another in misery out of that common interest they both have in humanity he would relieve and help the distressed like a friend not destroy him as an enemy and by that obligation of another would strengthen and secure his owne condition more against misfortunes then he could by destroying him and this humanity is writ in every mans heart in whom such wicked principles as his have not blotted it out from this principle it came that Acts 28. the barbarous people of Malita entertained St. Paul with such humanity if they had been of Mr. Hobbes his mind they would have killed him but humanity provoked them to kindnesse and malicious Axioms had not abused their judgements and therefore man was to man strange man such as they had no interest in a friend I know it may be objected here that those of Malita were men united in a Common-wealth and that might cause them to be so civil He hath taught me to answer this afterwards shewing how all Common-wealths being independent bodies are to one another in the state of warre and therefore other people are to them like other men to each other If he should againe reply that they should have neither hopes nor feares from this I answer they might have borâ— hopes to get what they had and feares that they might spy out their weaknesses and many other the like which Covetousnesse and Desire of safety might have suggested to them but such as in them and ingenious spirits might easily be controlled by humanity Sect. 3. But he goe's on to prove that these men are at warre one with another for saith he Warre consisteth not in battaile only true for the Schoole distinguish betwixt Bellum and pugna fight or battaile and warre or the act of fighting but in a tract of time wherein the will to contend by battaile is sufficiently knowne and therefore the notion of time is to be considered in the nature of warre He is the most unhappie man in his manner of defining that ever writ can any man think that warre
there is a necessity of nature which maketh men in generall avoid death in generall as the thing by which he must needs expect the greatest paine for it often happens that there is little paine and people that have dyed with a sense of deaths ugliness and so with some impatience I have found complaining of common accidents and such which had no participation of death in them and no cooperation to the dissolution of soule and body by death as Aches in particular parts sometimes they were galled and that troubled them sometimes that there were clods or hardness in the Bed c. All which shewed that these paines not those of Death were more sensible then even death its selfe Sect. 9. He proceeds It is not against reason that a man doth all he can to preserve his own body and limbes both from death and paine had he put in that little word and esteemed a little thing by him justly and honestly he had said truth but alas else how unreasonable a thing it is that a man to save himself from a little pain should act things prejudiciall to the glory of God the publique good or else some greater good of his own any man who hath sense of any thing but sense and unworthy ease cannot choose but apprehend that the greater good should be chosen before the lesse such are those before specified Therefore in such Cases that they for paine or death its self are relinquished is against reason What he adde's And that which is not against reason we call right c. I agree to for certainly there is no wrong which is not against reason but his deduction It is therefore a right of Nature that every man may preserve his own life and limbes with all the power he hath This deduction by what is already said cannot be true but when his life and limbes are not opposed by some greater good CHAP. XXIII Of using or misusing meanes in order to their end The regulation of mans judgment in it The preservation of life and estate when necessary Of right and wrong Law c. Sect. 1. 1. I Come now to Number 7. which begins thus And because where a man hath right to the end and the end cannot be attained without the meanes that is without such things as are necessary to the end it is consequent that it is not against reason and therefore right for a man to use all meanes and doe whatsoever action is necessary for the preservation of his body How vile and illogicall is this had he proved that the body were the end of man or instead of body had he said for the preservation of that end his axiome explained thus might have borne him out in it but as it is puâ— there is no connexion for suppose a man hath right to the end his own happiness and by that right likewise to all meanes which conduce to it yet unlesse this body can be proved to be that end his application of it to the body is of no force Well I will examine his Aphorisme First he who hath right to the end hath not right to all meanes of getting it is apparent for he who hath right to an estate or an house hath not right to take it by force he must onely use legall meanes for the obtaining and preserving it and so though a man have right to his body or life yet he hath no right to preserve it by unlawfull actions It is a most just rule of law that a man must so use his owne as he must not hurt another a man hath right to water and a Meadow but he must not so use his water and his meadow as by overflowing his meadow he should drowne his neighbours Corne. So although a man have right to his life yet this right is not of such a transcendent power as to enable him for the preservation of that life to hurt others and destroy their lives But once again for further and clearer explication of that rule he gives concerning an end let us observe that it hath no truth but concerning the last end and in that it hath for since all mens actions are for an end that is his summum bonum his happiness every man out of necessity of nature doth what he doth for it and the utmost he can for it but this life or body is not mans happiness and for any second end there being no necessity of the end it self there is much less of any means which conduce to it and therefore of such ends of which nature mans temporall life and body are there is no manner of truth in it no more then if we should say it were right for a man to doe what he can any thing to obtain pleasure or profit upon which he sets his heart Sect. 2. His 8. Numb must be likewise examined which saith Also every man by right of nature is judge himself of the necessity of the meanes and of the greatness of the danger This hath some truth in it and yet not to be so understood that by right of nature a man may judge what he will and accordingly act and what he acts is right as he seems to imply here from hence enforces afterwards for as in our judicatures there must use be made of Judges and the decrees of those Judges will regulate and govern our possessions yet those Judges have rules by which their judicatures should be regulated and what they act contrary to those rules or Lawes although it may be effected yet it is wicked so it is in those no doubt but every man will in such an impossible state as he supposeth man judge of the meanes and necessity but yet there is a law of nature in every man by which his judgement should be guided and what he judgeth though never so congruent to his will contrary to this law is not right so that as a Judge though what he judgeth must be performed and he hath power to judge what he thinkes fit yet he hath right to judge only according to the law of that Nation which gave him the power of being a Judge all other judgement is by power but not by right so is it with this man he may act against the law of nature for the preservation of his life or Limbe but if not right it is wicked to doe so The Argument he brings for proofe of this Conclusion convinceth not me For saith he if it be against reason that I be Judge of mine own danger my self then it is reason that another may be Judge c. It is reason say I that in such a Case I am Judge but it is reason likewise that I judge according to Law and make my will be guided by reason not my reason regulated by my will because it is mine it is not therefore right but because mine according to the law of nature and right reason of which he himself afterwards