is possible they may fight for 't For being that every one of them have an equal right to this same that is in controversie they may either compound for it as to its value or decide it by Lot or some other way that reason may direct which is a Law of reason and humane Nature and not meerly positive because it is in Law Books Neither did I proceed to shew what kind of Government they fix'd upon or how long they continned in that even condition or how every one of them thrived For perhaps before the year ran round Roger might fuddle or game away all his Estate or his Cattle might all dy and he forc'd to sell Land to get more Stock Neither have I told you what was Tumbler's first Complement to Towser nor what was Towser's reparty nor whether they bow'd only half way or down to the ground nor which leg the one and t'other drew back Which had I intended an absolute discourse should not have been omitted All that I shall venture to say is this that I hope it may appear to three or four for I durst not presume to convert many that Mr. Hobbs is not such a great discoverer and afforder of new things as his own Prefaces and his Titles to Books would make thee believe Neither is he so great a dispeller of clouds but that thou mayst buy an ell of them under a Mark Neither is Humane Nature or reason so very vile and raskally as he writes his own to be nor his account of it altogether so demonstrative as Euclid There 's nothing now wanting Reader but only to give thee a hundred and fifty reasons why I writ this and tell thee of most wonderful things that happen'd or else it had been much better Thou mayst read on if thou pleasest if thou wilt not thou mayst let it alone however thou art heartily wellcome thus far A Dialogue BETWEEN Timothy and Philautus Tim. WELL met Philautus how does your best self this morning What stout and hearty Phi. I take care of my self Sir my body is pretty well I thank you Tim. Then all is well I suppose Phi. Yes truly in my opinion all is well when that is so Tim. In your opinion Why doe not all count that well which you count well or are you a man by your self Phi. I am just what you see me to be But some people I find have two men to take care of an outward man and an inward man for my part I am able to maintain but one and if I can shift it that shall take no hurt for want of looking after But I begg your pardon Sir for I know you not Tim. No matter for that come shall we take a turn or two in the Walks Phi. No I thank you unless I knew your tricks better you may chance to get behind me and bite me by the Legs Let them take a turn with you that have not search'd into the fundamental Laws of humane nature and the first rise of Cities and Societies I know better things than to trust my self with one that I never saw before I have but one body and I desire to carry it home all to my chamber Tim. You had better I profess have no body at all or compound to be kick'd and beaten twice a day than to be thus dismally tortur'd and solicitous about an old rotten carcase Phi. Come come you talk like a young man Let me tell you the body is a very precious thing and when you can make me believe otherwise who have poised Kingdoms counted up all the advantages of bodily strength and am throughly acquainted with all the humours and passions of mankind then will I stay with you and venture a kicking And so farewell Tim. I beseech you Sir stay a little upon my honour I intend nothing but a walk and civill discourse Phi. I know no honour any man has but an acknowledgement of his power and greatness So that all the security that I have that you will not injure me is that you can certainly do it if you have a mind to 't And therefore I pray doe so much as take your honour along with you into that other walk or else I shall crie out murder I don't care for trusting my self with unknown honour Tim. Then as I am a Gentleman and my name is Timothy I doe not intend you the least mischief Phi. What Sir doe you take me for a fool doe not I know that a Gentleman is one that keeps a man to quarrel fight beat and abuse You must not think to catch old Birds with Chaffe And therefore once more farewell M r Timothy if your name be so Tim. I pray Sir be not gon yet upon my honesty and as I am a Christian you shall suffer no hurt Phi. Now indeed you have mended the business much what is there ever an Act of Parliament against your beating me particularly and if there be where 's the Constable to put it in execution Tim. Well I see I must discover my self or nothing is to be done I am Sir to put you out of all doubt then a relation of a great friend of yours Doe you know this Picture Sirâ— Phi. Indeed I think I did once almost see some such thing or something a little like it in his study a great while ago if my eyes memory and the rest of my faculties doe not â—ail me Tim. So then now I hope you are past all feares Therefore if you will we 'l walk towards Lambs Conduit there 's better aire Phi. I profess Sir you make mâ— shake most horribly There 's a word indeed next one 's heart I much question whether I shall eat again these two dayes If you 'l forbear all such language and keep close to your own side and not look behind you I 'le venture to take two or three turnes with you otherwise I shall leave your company forthwith Tim. Most certainly Philautus you are the most wary mistrustful and suspicious creature now living upon the face of the whole earth Phi. I thank my Stars I have had some time to look into Histories and I have made some observations of my own and I find they very much tend to my good and welfare In short I think I know as well as another what man can doe and what is his full value Tim. Surely you are not made of the ordinary mortal mould but of some peculiar thin and brittle stuff or else you would never talk thus Phi. Your pleasure for that I only say what I said before I think I know what is that which all wise men ought to cherish refresh make much of love and regard Tim. Still Philautus I understand you not What have you been often affronted abused choused â—repann'd flung down stairs tossed in a blanket Phi. No I 'le assure thee Tim I have alwayes kept as they say out of harme's way as much as could be especially since I studied morals and
bridge for undervaluing worth Tim. You talk Philautus of your Humane Nature containing the Elements of Policy there 's one cunning reflexion p. 5. concerning imagination which is so full of novelty and subtilty that it is enough alone to set up a man for chief Minister of State viz. that the absence or destruction of things once imagined doth not cause the absence or destruction of the imagination it self Phi. Why does it Tim. No For suppose I have a House in Cheapside which I have sometimes seen and sometimes imagined according as I was best at leasure and this house upon a day either runs away from me or I from that yet still I may phansy my self trading in my own shop and eating in my own House nay though it should be burnt down to the very ground yet for a need I can make shift once or twice a year to phansie it still standing or at least to wish that it were And surely upon this is founded that old friendly saying viz. though absent in body yet present in mind Phi. And is it not a good saying Tim. Yes it is pretty good but nothing near so enlightning as your enlargement thereupon For by that you make out the whole business to be as plain as can be and so you doe another thing which I have often wondred at I have seen sometimes a man set up his staffe in the middle of a great field and a while after he has gon back and put up a Hare I had a kind of a ghessing how this might possibly be but durst never be confident till I was made happy by that ample and satisfactory definition you give of a mark p. 44. A mark say you is a sensible object which a man erecteth volutarily to himself to the end to remember thereby somewhat past when the same is objected to his sense again Phi. Why doe you laugh Tim there 's nothing left out is there Tim. Not in the least it will doe I 'le undertake for the tallest May-pole in the whole Nation Phi. But for all that I am confident Tim that thou dost not approve of it throughly Tim. I must not Sir lay out all my approbation hereupon because there 's abundance more of such fine things were I at leasure to look them out that doe also highly deserve to be approved of Who would not save a good large corner of his heart for such an accurate accompt as you give p. 35. of an experiment viz. the remembrance of succession of one thing to another that is of what antecedent has been followed by what Consequent is Called an experiment As if I put my finger into a Pike's mouth to see if he can bite my finger is the Antecedent and if he bites there 's a Consequent for my Antecedent which I suppose Philautus I should remember and according to your directions call it an experiment I hope also that I shall never forget what you tell me p. 80. where speaking of Musick and sounds you lay down this â—dmirable and standing deâ—inition of an aire viz. an aire is a pleasure of sounds which consisteth in consequence of one note after another diversified both by accent and measure Phi. Surely Tim thou beginnest to be mad is it not very just and very punctual Tim. Truly Sir I know nothing comparable to it and what you said before about an experiment for absolute exactness except it be what the above mentioned Zacutus says concerning a teame of Links in his sixth Chapter of minc'd meats a Teame of Linkes says he is a certain train of oblong termes where the consequent of the first is concatenated to the antecedent of the second and the consequent of the second to the antecedent of the third c. So that every terme in the whole train is both antecedent and consequent Phi. You don't seem to like these same antecedents and consequents Tim. Tim. A little of them Sir now and then I like very well especially when they are brought in so naturally as they are by Zacutus But when any such words are needlessly forced upon me I have enough of them for I know not how long after I once Sir got such an horrible surfeit with a long story of Consequences in a Scheme of yours concerning the Sciences Lev. p. 40. that my stomach has scarce stood right towards Consequences ever since Phi. What doe you find fault to see all kind of knowledge lie fairely before your eyes Tim. I have seen it Sir several times but all the art is in the catching and I count my self never a whit the nearer for being told as I am there by you that Science is the knowledge of all kind of Consequences which is also called Philosophy And Consequences from the accidents of bodys natural is called natural philosophy And Consequences from accidents of politick bodies is called Politicks or civil philosophy And Consequences from the stars Astronomy Consequences from the Earth Geography Consequences from vision Opticks Consequences from sounds Musick And so Consequences from the rest are to be called the rest I profess Philautus These same Consequences did so terribly stick in my head that for a long while after I was ready to call every body that I met Consequence Phi. And now as nice as you are Mr. Timothy I pray let me hear you define any of those things better come hold up your head and like a Philosopher tell me what 's Geography Tim. Alas Sir I know nothing of it but only I have heard people say it is about the earth Phi. About the earth What dost mean round about the earth Tim. Yes Sir if you please round about and quite through and about and about again any thing will serve my turn Phi. So I thought by that little knowledge which I perceive will satisfie thee But I prethee Tim how came we to ramble thus from the state of war Tim. We have been alll this while close at it Sir for if you remember I was to shew you which I think I have done that the old Philosophers might have written as well concerning Politicks as your self notwithstanding you call your humane nature the fundamental Elements of Policy in which there 's nothing at all towards any such purpose except it be in the title and at the end of the Book where there stands these words Conclusion being written over them viz. Thus have we considered the nature of man so far as was requisite for the finding out the first and most simple Elements wherein the composition of Politick Rules and Laws are lastly resolved which conclusion honest Will. Lilly might e'en as well have set to the end of his Grammar as you have done to your Humane nature Phi. It is no matter Tim what 's written on the outside of Books be it at beginning or ending so that that which is within be excellent and serviceable Tim. I am very nigh of your mind Philautus but yet I would not have all the Philosophers
of thy opinion and pertly to contradict me would gainsay themselves And to such I use to say thus What mean you Gentlemen to approve of that in your discourses which your actions perfectly disavow Do you not see all countries though they be at peace with their neighbours yet guarding their frontiers with armed men their Towns with walls and ports and keeping constant watches Do you not see even in well governed States where there are Lawes and punishments appointed for offenders yet particular men travel not without their sword by their sides for their defences neither sleep they without shutting not only their doors against their fellow subjects but also their Trunks and Coffers against domesticks Can men give a clearer testimony of the fear and distrust they have each of other and all of all and that the first stop that was put to the state of war was upon the accompt of fear and that it is not yet quite ended therefore are you not asham'd to fight against your selves that you may quarrel me Thus I use to school over such small objectors and little observers of humane affaires Tim. And I pray Sir how did they use to take such a demonstration and what did thy use to say again Phi. E'en as much as thou art able to say now What dost think all people in the world are amalepert as thy self â— and talk again when there is nothing to be said Tim. However Philautus if I had been there rather than my tongue should have catch'd cold I 'd have said over the alphabet or somewhat or other if it had been only this viz. We see indeed Castles Walls Draw-bridges Guards Guns Swords Doors Locks and the like But surely it is not absolutely necessary to say that all this care is taken and these defences made because Humane Nature at first was and in generall still is a Whore a Bitch a Drab a Cut-purse c. But because there be Doggs Foxes Hoggs Children Fooles Madmen Drunkards Thieves Pyrats and Philautians And upon that accompt considering the wickedness of the world it is a most dangerous and frightfull thing to leave the Dairy-door open for who knowes but on a suddain the Sow having some small scruples about meum and tuâ—m may rush in with her train of little thoughts and invading the Milk-bowles should rejoyce in the confusion And in like manner I am almost throughly convinced that if I have a Diamond of considerable value it is not the safest way to fling it into the shoe-hole or to lay it in the window amongst the Bay-leaves because perhaps the waggish Ratts to make me spend candle may carry it away and hide it up in the cock-loft or a child may have a mind to try whether it will sink or swim or may swallow it instead of a new fashioned Sugar plumb or lastly because I may chance to have a â—ervant who being not well dried of the state of nature may make use of the members of his body to remove it from the place where I laid it And I must needs tell you Philautus if a friend or so should intend me a visit who I was sure did really believe no good or evil before the Statutes of the Kingdome I should count my self in all prudence oblig'd to set a very strong lock upon my mustard pot But to go on Philautus you observe besides from Constables and watches that man is a most dreadfull creature but before you be very sure of that conclusion I would have you call to mind that there be such things in the world as madmen who may get from their fetters and fall to â—iring of houses and there be such things as Quakers and fift Monarcy-men whose religious frenzy may disturb the peace and there be also such things which in the morning were true lawfull men who by night with intemperance have lost that priviledge and these for a time may be as troublesome in the streets as a wild Boar or Ox And lastly there may be here and there some besides call'd Pilferers and Thieves who count it a piece of dull pedantry to live by any set forme and profession or to be guided by any reason or to stand in any Lawes and for you to conclude from hence that Humane Nature in general ' is a shirking rooking pilfering padding nature is as extravagant as to say that the chief of mankind are perfectly distracted and that the true state of nature is a state of perpetuall drinkenness And what if most Nations have Guards and Castles and be upon defence you must not infer that all men are Rogues because Alexander had a mind to try an experiment and to see how much mischief he could doe in his whole life-time or because the Caesars spoiled many Kingdomes brought them into slavery for the excellen jest of pure Latin and Roman liberty or because the Turk gave two pence for a Pigeon to tell him from above that all the earth was his You know Philautus our own Nation never wanted Horses Ships Men and valour to have trampled down many of its Neighbours but such have been the equity and generosity of our Kings as unless highly provoked to stay at home Phi. You never found that I asserted that all the people in the world are shirks and raskals But I may confidently assert that there be some and seeing that we do not know them and cannot distinguish them from the good there 's a necessity as I tell you in my Epistle of suspecting heeding anticipating subjugating and self-defending Tim. I pray do so much as understand me Philautus I am not against your putting all those words and forty more into practice Ride with eight suspecting pistols and half a dozen heeding swords Let a file of anticipating Musqueteers walk constantly before you and as many subjugating ones behind plant a defending blunderbuss upon the top of your stairs put on a head-piece instead of a quilted cap and sleep in perfect armour or if this be not sufficient beg leave of his Majesty that you may have a bed set up in the Exchequer or surrender your self every night to the Lievtenant of the Tower and let him be extraordinarily obliged that you awake in safety next morning In short take as much care of your self as you think most just for you know your worth best but from your own distrust and fear I do earnestly desire that you would not determine any thing concerning the general disposition and temper of humane nature and that if a mouse comes to lick the save-all you would not alarum the whole Christian world and cry out that the Turk is landed This I say is all that I desire of you for when you tell us that there be Thieves and that we don't know them and if we did we do not know what day we may meet them this was very well and very fully understood by every Carrier and Drover many years before you writ your Politicks and
all stars in their forehead and the latter had all shorn manes and cropt eares You have been several times Philautus angry since we began to discourse it â—s time I think for me to be so now Phi. With whom Tim. E'en with your own Political self as old as you are For you go and appoint a company of people to come I know not whence and to bring with them nothing but their pure personalities and to arrive at a place where 's not the least Custom Law or Statute And then in your discourse you fetch all your Arguments from want of such Customs Laws and Statutes That is I 'le suppose an Island where there 's not so much as one dogg And then I 'le determine that jus shall signifie nothing in the world but a dogg and then I will conclude against all mankind that if Roger comes thither he shall not have a bit of right i. e. he will find never a dogg If you suppose Philautus suppose one thing with another viz. that which is possible As for your state of nature though it be sufficiently extravagant yet I was resolved to keep you company and to be either for mushroomes or bubbles or bladders or teeth or cherry-stones or any thing that could be devised But when you determine with your self that there shall be no Acts of Parliament and yet all the while reason so as if there were such I must confess that I must then leave you Phi. Now have I no mind at all to part with the but to put my self into such an odd kind of displeasure as to suffer thee to talk on without pity only to see how far thou wouldest abuse thy self if thou hadst but thy full swing And therefore I do say again that where there is no Law there can be no right Now it is five to one if thou dost not prate presently do so thy whole gut full Perhaps this may bring thee into some moderation and beter respect of those that are aged Tim. Truly under favour Sir I am thinking thus Phi. Nay for thinking think till thy heart strings crack but that won't satisfie thee for thou must prate I know Tim. Yes Sir Suppose a man pays down five thousand pounds for an Estate and accordingly receives writings before sufficient witnesses And it happens that the following night his writings are all burnt and his witnesses all die What law now has he for his money His conveyances are gone towards the Moon and his witnesses t'other way Phi. Thou dost not understand that he of whom the Estate was purchased may be brought upon his oath There 's law Tim that thou didst not think of Tim. But I 'le have that man the same night to die also and his Heir shall be five hundred miles off when the bargain was made This is much easier to suppose Philautus than to make men out of bladders Now here 's no Law in the case for the Purchaser but he has much right and reason on his side Phil. This 't is to talk of Law and not understand it I say there 's no reason at all that he should ever have or enjoy the least part of the Estate For if this were allowed whenever a man wanted a good house and gardens it were but saying that his witnesses are dead and his writings lost and he might e'en pick his seat whereever he pleased Tim. I grant you it is not reasonable i. e. it is not convenient that there should be room made for such pretenses But the man notwithstanding hath never the less right to the Estate which consisted in the bargain and true performance of Covenants not in the Parchments wax and witnesses which are requisite only by reason of death mistakes forgetfulness ambiguity of words knavery and the like Phi. And art thou now so very â—illy as to dream that any of this is against me For thou hast given an instance of right in a Common-wealth where there 's bargaining and Law And our business lies all this while about the state of nature where there 's neither one nor t'other But indeed how can any thing less impertinent be possibly expected from such who having only gone through a course of the praedicaments Tim. And run over your race of the Passions I pray don't forget that Phi. Who I say having saved together a few Academical shreds and pedantically starched up a few distinctions and trifles got from the Schools shall prate and swagger as if they were well acquainted with both the Poles and every thing that lies between them Tim. And as if they could square the circle as well as your self Let that come in I beseech you It was most pedantically done of the Vniversity Doctour that when you had so painfully squared it for the general good of mankind he should spightfully go and unsquare it again But hold Sir we forget our selves For we are in a state of nature or war and we fall to complementing as if the peace were concluded And therefore I shall return to my instance concerning Right and Law Which now I tell you Philautus I gave not intending therein any great store of proof much less any demonstration as you use to do but I did it only to supple and soften you into a little less difficulty of distinguishing between that which is right and reasonable and that which is according to the Laws of the Realm Phi. What dost talk of suppling of me Tim I prethee go home and put thy head into a pipkin and there stew it till thou gettest more wit What dost think because I look upon my body as a good considerable thing that therefore I am so great a Coward as to submit to nonsence and comply with impossibilities and to be mistaken only because it is the general fashion I shall not do so indeed Tim supple and soften as long as you will And therefore to ruine all your hopes at once I do say that those four men that we have supposed in the state of Nature have not the least right to any part of the Island not only because their share or portion is not as yet bounded and marked out or because they cannot require any part by Humane law but besides because Nature has given to every one of them an absolute compleat total right to every thing that 's there to be found Tim. What has Nature given to Dick suppose a right to the whole Kingdom with all the profits priviledges perquisites and appurtenances Phi. I prethee Tim climb up some high Steeple or Tower and wonder there I have other business to do than to stay only to see thee stare at sunshine truths and demonstrations What I have said I have weighed which young toys as thou art never do Tim. Then truly Dick has reason to speak very laudably of Nature for he 's in a very fine thriving condion I 'le have the Rogue add a pair of horses more to his coach and to keep two foot-boys
one for sack and another for claret in Liveries answerable to the colour of their duties I am resolved he shall never fit but in a box drink nothing but flaskes eat nothing that has an English name and wipe his mouth only with Indian Almanacks But how shall poor Roger make shift to live He must e'en try to earn his penny with lighting home Norfolk Attourney's Clerks Phi. Thou art so infinitely uncapable Tim that one had as good pick up old rags for paper as labour to make thee understand For if thou hadst any brains thou mightest know that Nature has given to Roger all notwithstanding Dick's grant Tim. Say you so Then rise up Roger and tumble down Dick. Phi. I prethee Tim away presently and according as I gave order set on thy head for it will never make shift to do as it now lies Who except Tim but would easily have apprehended how that Roger might have a right to it all notwithstanding Dick to all of it had a right Tim. Oh the wonderful works of a black pudden with anchovie-sance This 't is to have joyned Logick with Mathematicks For take one for cunning and t'other for soundness and betwixt them both they 'l make up such a title as would have pusled old Prin himself to have found out a pattern of it But what becomes of Tumbler and Towser all this while The World certainly is very low with them For if Dick has got All and Roger has got the same All over besides and notwithstanding the Devil is of it if between them both they don't keep out t'other two Phil. I am quite tired with calling thee fool though I perceive the occasion increases very much I don't say that Dick and Roger have got it all but I say they have got a right to get it all and so have the rest Tim. And may Dick or any other of them in right and reason get it all if they can Phi. I prethee step to the gate and ask the Porter that Must I spend my self to tell thee again that we are in the state of Nature in which whatever a man has a mind to do and can do he may do Tim. Why so What because may and can are of the same Mode and Tense or that possum is Latin for them both Phi. No thou perverse trifler that 's not the reason But because in the state of Nature there 's no difference at all between May and Can. Tim. That is because Roger has a vocal instrument between his chin and his nose called a mouth and being not muzled gagged or cop'd but having a free power faculty or May to open it and order it as he think fit therefore he May stretch it out as wide as he please and swear quite cross the Island that he 'l have the whole or at least half And because he has other instruments called hands which have an ability of holding and directing a knife therefore again he May make use thereof to cut the throats of all his Countreymen And when he has done this if he be not tired and his hands does not much shake he May also cut his own Phi. Surely I ought not to forgive my self this Month for beeing within the noise of such childish talk My reason that Roger whilst in the state of Nature may do any thing except hurting himself or require any thing was because he cannot be injurious or unjust to any man Injury or injustice being the breach of some Humane laws such as in the state of Nature there be none Do so much as go to thy Dictionary Tim and see if injuria and injustitia be not deriv'd of jus Tim. I perceive we are wheel'd about to Westminster Hall again notwithstanding you promised not to come there any more And indeed I see now Philautus 't is in vain to expect any better reason from you why Roger may get and possess what he list by reason what you said just before viz. that that only was injustice which was the breach of some humane law is in your own Annotations upon the tenth Article of your first Chapter So that we see whereabouts we still are the Parliament is not as yet met or at least have not as yet made any Lawes and wee 'l call nothing unjust but what shall be done against somewhat that they afterwarâ— shall establish and so we are come again into the old story of the dogg and no further are we likely to proceed unless we change injury and injustice for some other words And therefore let 's try Philautus if Roger may not doe that which is hurtfull or mischievous or that which is unreasonable As suppose when all the rest are asleep he should contrive some way to pluck out all their eyes and to suck them instead of raw eggs 'T is very ingenious and not the least mischiefe or hurt at all for the Parliament have not as yet declar'd that blindness is any inconvenience nor that such as should occasion it in others ought to be punish'd Phi. Thou thinkest now that thou talkest wisely and 't is as like a Woodcock as can be For if Roger's stomach require it or he thinkes that it does Roger may certainly doe it Tim. Yes yes He may doe it several ways either with a Steletto or a Penknife or a pair of Pincers or many other ways And so he may contrive to lop off a legg of each of them and when the Parliament meet if they find it unjust they may vote it on again But because we may take occasion to talk a little more of this by and by wee 'l go on and see if these people may not be guilty of doing or requiring that which is unreasonable Phi. I don 't at all see how Tim. That is because you are so busie in weighing of Kingdoms and making remarkes upon humane affairs that you don't mind your own writings For if you did you might there find that in your very state of Nature the will is not the only measure of right and that therein a man may be guilty of doing of that which is unreasonable Phi. I do not know why I should say so or any thing like it Tim. Why you said it I know not and I suppose it had been better for you not to have said it because it contradicts much of your designe but thus you say at the beginning of the forementioned Aâ—notations Though a man in the state of Nature cannot be injurious to another because there are as yet no Humâ—ne Lawes yet in such a state he may offend God or break the Lawes of Nature which very Lawes you your self call the Lawes of reason So that you have no way to come cleaverly off but to devise some cunning distinction between breaking a Law of reason and doing that which is unreasonable Phi. What dost think Tim that â—t these years and after so much experience and after so many victories in discourse that I will be
am afraid that they are like those same perpetual Lamps that some Philosophers speak of which have got a trick of going out always when people go to see them Tim. What think you of drunkenness Philautus Is it a thing altogether indifferent till the Magistrate has given his opinion in the case Phi. Truly Tim I must tell you that whilst Dick Roger and the rest continue in the state of Nature they may take a cup of the creature with more freedome and less inconvenience than thou dost imagine For the windows are not as yet glazed nor the Constables chosen and if one of them having received an occasion of being more than ordinary thoughtful should by chance set his foot not exactly in the path here 's no breach of Law Trespass or Action in the Case because the Land as yet stands wholly undivided Tim. But it is not very bad husbandry to make an hundred steps for that which might have been done as well with forty Phi. Now Tim I advise thee to take leave of thy friends for thou hast said that which will prove thy utter destruction I do grant indeed that intemperance is very silly and unreasonable not because it is so in it self but because now Tim keep thy eye fixed I say again but because 't is inpolitick and perfectly against my interest for it makes me obnoxious to many dangers and several diseases and besides it destroys and weakens the use of my reason and so renders me unable either to defend my estate from cheats or my life and limbs from such as are quarrelsom Tim. Truly Philautus I did never look upon temperance to be altogether so good to kill Rats as Arsnick and Raysons nor to carry one over the water as a sculler or oares But if there be any reason to be given why it ought to be approved of before the contrary besides the Magistrates determination therein then as was before mentioned you are not so great a dispeller of Clouds as you promised to be when you said that by firm reasons you would demonstrate that there was no good or evil till the Supreme Power had set it out and therefore at present I resolve to defer speaking to self interest and shall shew you another rarity What think you of faithfulness i. e. of keeping your promise or standing to your bargain Is it not a very reasonable thing though there were never a Magistrate in the whole World Phi. You talk of shewing me rarities Tim and you draw out some of my fundamental wares for to perform Contracts or to keep trust is my second Law of Nature That is when people are resolved to end the state of war by relinquishing their right to all things it is very requisite that Contracts should be stood to for they direct to peace and self-defence Tim. But is it not a good and reasonable thing in it self to perform Contracts in the very state of nature Phi. What time didst thou go to bed last night Tim What would you have a thing good before there be any such thing at all You ask whether it be not good to stand to Contracts when 't is supposed that there has not been so much as one ragg dealt for in the whole world Tim. For all that I can conceive it very just and reasonable for a man to keep his word although he never spoke as yet nor perhaps never shall For suppose there were not one drop of Liquor in the whole Island that we have been talking of yet I count it as unreasonable for Roger to be drunk as if he were just ready to set the great pitcher to his mouth and had sufficient matter to proceed upon And it seems I believe to most men except your self Philautus a very unnatural and unjust thing for a Iudge or Arbiter to incline to either side though there never was as yet one Case put to reference nor should be these thousand years Phi. Thou hast gone on Tim in thy careless shuffling way I know not whither And now I must dash thee all in pieces and tell thee that thou talkest like one not at all conversant in my Writings for if thou hadst thou wouldst there have found no less than twenty good and bad things all fetched from reason such as faithfulness mercy humility temperance reproach ingratitude c. which I call my Laws of Nature But here 's the pinch of the business and that which thou didst never attend to these things I say are good and bad not because they are so inwardly in themselves but because they either conduce to peace in general or are for a man 's own quiet and safety or for his health or profit or recreation or for the advantage of his Family or Relations or are a hinderance of these in short because they are for or against a man's interest Tim. This was a great dash indeed Philautus and I have improved more by it than by all that you have said I know not how long for if we be discoursing concerning some action or disposition of mind that is good and if the same chance to prove convenient either to King or Subject Church or State for my self or any body else for this life or next That is if it be good for any thing that has but a name then is it not good in it self but good upon another account which let it be what it will with a little artâ—fice of phrase may be so twisted as it shall certainly be all driven upon your common shoar of interest Truly Philautus I can scarce tell what you would have meant by things being good in themselves unless you would have them only to be pictured with pretty eyes mouths and lips or have a man get the vertues and hang them upon several strings or tye them to the end of some sticks and so sing over his most excellent and dainty Iustice his curious amiable Temperance his bright angelical Mercy and the like But I might have taken much less pains Philautus to have shewn against you that all good and evil does not depend either upon self interest or hâ—mane Law because you are so very over kind as to acknowledge it and confute your self Phi. You may as well say that the second Proposition of Euclid does contradict and void the first Tim. You may say so if you please but I am resolved I won't when I see so much reason to say otherwise Phi. About what place and in what Article canst thou possibly pick out any such absurdity Tim. I did shew you one place you know long ago where you said that a man in the very state of Nature might be guilty of breaking the Laws of Nature which is all one according to your self as to say that a man may act against reason before there be any positive Laws and that 's all that I desire you would acknowledge Neither do I suppose that you did intend to excuse your self by what you say a little
M r HOBBS'S State of Nature Considered In a Dialogue BETWEEN Philautus and Timothy To which are Added FIVE LETTERS From the AUTHOR of the GROUNDS and OCCASIONS of the CONTEMPT OF THE CLERGY London Printed by E. T. and R. H. for Nath. Brooke at the Sign of the Angel in Cornhil near the Royal Exchange 1672. To the most Reverend Father in God GILBERT by Divine Providence Lord Archbishop of CANTERBURY PRIMATE of all England and METROPOLITAN and one of His MAJESTIES most Honourable Privy Council c. May it please your Grace ALthough for several reasons I ought in duty to lay all my endeavours at your Graces feet and beg your acceptance of them yet I was the more encourag'd to make this address because the subiect seemes naturally to have recourse to your Graces Protection For the same Divine Providence that has made your Grace Father of the Church has made you also Guardian of Humane Nature Which as your Grace well knows has been so vilely aspersed and persecuted by our Adversarie's malicious suggestions that he is willing indeed to suffer such a word as man still to remain amongst us but what was alwayes meant and design'd thereby he has endeavoured to chase quite out of the world The vindication therefore of Humane Nature could not but seek for protection from that great example of humanity whose constant practice doth alone abundantly confute all the slanderers of mankind If Mr. Hobbs had been pleased to have given only a History or Roll of the unjust or unfaithfull there would not then have been such occasion to importune your Graces favouring such attempts as this But when he teaches that cheating is not only according to reason but that it is the first principle and dictate thereof for the very credit of being on reason's side people shall count themselves engaged to be Knaves And therefore I have persumed to offer to your Graces Patronage this small discourse wherein I have endeavoured to shew that those that are wicked and unrighteous are not such by Reason or any advice of Humane Nature but onely because they have a mind to be so And I am not altogether discourag'd from thinking that by this consideration of Mr. Hobbs's State of Nature and my Introduction thereunto it may appear to your Grace that it would not have been an impossible thing to have said somewhat to the rest of his writings wherein he differs from what is generally believed But for me to go about to inform your Grace of the folly or inconveniences of Mr Hobbs's principles would be next unto his undertaking to read lectures to all mankind Your Grace cannot but understand that the matters insisted on in this Dialogue have been often recommended to the protection of great Persons and by those of eminent worth and Learning and if there be any reason demanded why this comes so late from me I have nothing to offer in excuse either to your Grace or those that writ before me But yet however from some experience of your Graces favours towards me what I have performed I hope may not be altogether rejected notwithstanding the manner of it being to appearance not so grave and solid does a little dishearten me But since Mr. Hobbs by affected garbs of speech by a starch'd Mathematical method by counterfeit appearances of novelty and singularity by magisterial haughtinesse confidence and the like had cheated some people into a vast opinion of himself and into a beliefe of things very dangerous and false I did presume with your Graces pardon to think his writings so fond and extravagant as not to merit being opposed in good earnest and thereupon I was very loth to give them too much respect and add undue weight to them by a solemn and serious confutation And I hope my Dialogue will not find the less acceptance with your Grace for those Letters which follow after for although some are loth to believe the first Letters to be innocent and useful being a little troublesome and uneasie to their own humour yet your Grace I hope is satisfied that the Author of them did heartily therein study the credit and advantage of the Church and that our Clergy would certainly be better reputed and more serviceable were it possible they all could be as learned and as bountiful as your Grace What I have now perform'd I humbly submit to your Graces favourable judgement desiring that it may be accepted of as an expression of most dutyfull and gratefull observance from Your Graces in all Duty and Service most devoted I. E. Decemb. 20. 1671. THE PREFACE TO THE READER Reader THe design of this Preface is not to advise or encourage thee to read what follows for I should not take it well my self to be so drawn in but if thou chancest to look into it and be not already acquainted with Mr. Hobbs's state of nature this is to let thee know that thereby is to be understood a certain supposed time in which it was just and lawful for every man to hang draw and quarter whom he pleased when he pleased and after what manner he pleased and to get possess use and enjoy whatever he had a mind to And the reason of this so large a Charter was because it was supposed that these people had not as yet any ways abridged themselves of their utmost liberty by any voluntary bargains or agreements amongst themselves neither could they be restrained by any Humane Laws because the Magistrate was not as yet chosen In this Dialogue therefore because Mr. Hobbs shall not say that I am stingy thou wilt find Reader that with him I have allowed though there 's very small reason for 't such a time or state wherein people came into the World after his own humour without being obliged either to God Parents Friends Midwifes or Publick Magistrate and yet notwithstanding I have endeavoured to make out how far or how well that 's no matter that those that are feigned to be in this condition have all such a natural right to their own lives and what is thereunto convenient that it is perfectly unjust and unreasonable for any one of them to take his utmost advantage and to do whatever he thinks he is able or pleases him best Thou mightest possibly expect after I had given each of the four Inhabitants of the Isle of Pines a right to the fourth part which thou dost not deserve to understand unless thou readest the Book that I should have proceeded and set out every man's share and so have answered to Mr. Hobbs's sixth Article Cap. 1. de Cive Wherein he saies that a great and necessary occasion of quarrelling and war is that several men oftimes have a desire to the same thing which thing if it happens not to be capable of being divided or enjoyed in Common they must needs draw and fight for 't Instead of which he should have said if these men chance to be mad or void of reason it
understood the true price of a whole man Tim. What should be the business then is it that you are descended of some very timorous family or was your mother buried alive with two sucking children Come Sir be free for I am confident there must be some occasion or other of this so very great jealousie and mistrustfullness of yours Phi. Then as a secret Tim I must tell thee that men nuturally are all â—â—venous and currish of a very snarling and biting nature to be short they are in themselves mere Wolves Tygers and Centaures Tim. Heavens forbid what are you and I Wolves Tygers and Centaures Phi. You may start at it for the present but when you have read as much observ'd as much and considered as much as I you 'l find it to be as true as that I have a pair of boots Tim. Methinks honest Tim has no mind at all to be a Centaure he had much rather be a sheep a Pigeon a Lark or any such pretty tame thing if you can afford it And now in the name of all that 's good I hope you doe not mistake and call that humane nature in generall which is only your own measuring all moral actions thereby and pronouncing that all mens teeth are very long and sharp because you find your own to be so Phi. Why should you suspect me to be more peevish surly and worse natur'd than other men and so recommend or impose my own temper and inclinations upon the world as a general standard Tim. I am very loath Philautus to accuse any man of bad nature it being such a great bundle of mischief in it self and so very troublesome to the Comon-wealth But when I find one so very tender and studious of his own wellfare and pleasure so little concern'd for any mans good but his own so great an admirer of his own humour and opinions so ready to call things demonstrations that doe not at all or very weakly prove and so apt to vilifie and under-value to hate and raile at three quarters of the Crâ—ation if they stand in his way and give him not due honour and respect I am very much afraid that such aâ—one when he comes to talk of the general disposition of mankind of the best and most fundamental lawes of life government and Religion will consult a little too much his own sweet Elephants tooth and the wamblings of his own dear bowels Phi. I shall not now stand to vindicate much less boost of my own temper It is well known that I have kept company with Gentlemen and Persons of Honour and they are able to judge what humour and carriage is decent and allowable better than all the Timothies in the Nation I prethee Tim What 's the difference between a Bustard and a Chevin Tim. I love our Nation and all men in it so well that I wish they had given you less entertainment it had been more for their honour and credit and the good of this Realm Phi. That is somewhat enviously said I hope you 'l give people leave to keep the best and most improving Company Would you have them die in mistakes and not listen to those that lay down the plainest Truths give best proof of them and in the purest English Tim. Nay hold you there be not proud of your company Proselytes and discoveries for I â—carce know one person of sobriety and parts in the whole Nation that is heaâ—titly of your opinion in any thing wherein you differ from what is commonly taught and received for most of those that talk over those places of your Books wherein you are singular do it either out of humour or because they are already debauch'd or intend to be so as soon as they can shake off all modesty and good nature and can furnish themselves with some of your little slender Philosophical pretences to be wicked Phil. Then indeed I have spent my time finely and studied to much purpose But methinks Tim thou art very peremptory for one of thy years It becomes gray haires and a staff to lean on to be thus dogmatical Tim. I care not for that for if need be I can be peremptory and doâ—matical without a staff especially when I meet with one that is so incurably immodest Phi. What then will you maintain that I have discovered nothing at all Is nothing true that I have said in my several Books I am sure my Works have sold very well and have been generally read and admir'd And I know what Mersennus and Gassendus have said concerning my Book de Cive but I shall not speak of that now Tim. And to say nothing now of Mersennus I know what people have said of Gassendus but I shall let that go also now Phi. But surely you cannot deny but there is somewhat true and considerable in my Writings Tim. O doubtless a great deal of them is true but that which is so is none of yours but common acknowledg'd things new phrased and trim'd up with the words power fear City transferring of right and the like and such is most of that part of your Book called Dominion which chiefly consists of such things as have been said these thousand years and would follow from any other Principles as well as yours Phi. You may talk what you will and if I were sure you would not beat me I 'd tell you right down that you lye Tim. Do so that 's as good for me as your humble servant but I go on and say that Monarchy is the best Government that it is the duty of Princes to respect the common benefit of many not the peculiar interest of this or that man that Eloquence without discretion is troublesome in a Common-wealth that he that has power to make Laws should take care to have them known that to have Souldiers Arms Garrisons and money in readiness in times of Peace is necessary for the peoples defence and a thousand such things I might repeat out of the forementioned place which were true many Ages before Philautus was born and will be let a man be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mouse or Lion But it is an easie matter to scatter up and down some little insinuations of the state of nature self preservation and such like fundamental phrases which to those that do but little attend shall seem to make all hang close together Phi. Why do you only say seem c I perceive now that you are not only very confident but spightful too and have a mind to lessen my credit Tim. No indeed I do not envy you in the least but I very much wonder at those that will disparage themselves so much as to be led away with any such small and manifest cheats and if you 'l promise me not to be dejected which I think I need not much fear for I never knew a man so much beyond all humiliation in my life I 'le briefly shew you the chief
a certain pack or aggregate of trangams which being all packed up and chorded close together they may then truly be said in Law to constitute a compleat and essential pack but if any one trangam be taken out or missing the pack then presently loses its packishness and cannot any longer be said to be a pack Phi. And now what aile you with this definition Is not the true notion and perfect Idaea of a cause very necessary and is not this that I have laid down full exact and compleat Tim. So very full Sir that if you had gon on but a little further it would have served for a Catalogue of the great Turk's Dominions but I hope you will not take it ill if I forget it because I promised my self long ago to that little short Gentleman cujus vi res est You have also Sir another very magnificent one of a Proposition which I care not much if I bestow upon the Emperour viz. Propositio est oratio constans ex duobus nominibus copulatis quâ significat is qui loquitur concipere se nomen posterius ejusdem rei nomen esse cujus est nomen prius which agrees very well with what Zacutus saies in his Treatise of a Spoon which he thus defines Instrumentum quoddam concavo-convexum quo posito in atiquod in quo aliud quo ddam diversum à posito ante positum fuit retro posito in os ponentis concipitur is qui posuit primum positum in secundum ex his positis aliquid concludere These and the like are only for huge Potentates but if any private Gentleman has a mind to be informed in the just adaequate and perfect conception of an interrogation and a request let him take them thus Interrogationes sunt orationes quae desiderium significant cognoscendi as what 's a clock Precationes sunt orationes quae desideriū significant aliquid habendi as give me an apple Phi. Surely thou art broken loose out of Hell to quarrel thus upon no grounds What is it that thou would'st have in a Logick Tim. Those that have nothing else to do but to put in a few new phrases under pretence of notions and discoveries and to alter perhaps the place of two or three Chapters I would not have them trouble the world with Logick or any thing else For as my Lord Bacon wisely observes nothing has more hindred the growth of Learning than peoples studying of new words and spending their time in chaptring modelling and marshalling of Sciences Phi. Then it seems I must learn of you how to spend my time What Tim would'st thou have me goe to School again Tim. You may doe as you will for that but you know Doctor Wallis thought you had sufficient need of it long ago Phi. Come Tim I prethee tell me one thing and tell me true hast not thou been lately amongst some of my Scholars and lamentably baffled and run down by them and does not this make thee fret and fume and dislike all that I have written I am confident so it is for otherwise thou couldst not but be of their opinion who discern and declare that they never perceiv'd such connexion of things and such close argning as I have in all things given the world an instance of Tim. You have now said that which I wish'd and watch'd for Because it gives me opportunity of mentioning another device you make use of to deceive people and get applause viz. you get together a company of words such as power fear and the like as was said before and thrust these into every page upon one pretence or other and then you call this connexion and boast as you doe in your Preface de Cive that there is but one thing in all your Book which you have not demonstrated Phi. I hope you will not betray your judgment so much as to find fault with my language which all the world admire Are there any words more truly English and natural than power fear c. Tim. Questionless they are very good words when rightly made use of but to hale them in where there is no need at all meerly to carry on the great work of power and fear and by a forc'd repetition thereof to make thence a seeming connexion with reverence be it spoken is very idle and impertinent It seemes to me to savour very much of their humours who fall wofully in love with some certain numbers One he is sorely smitten with the complexion and features of the number four And so he calls presently for his four Inns of Courts his four Terms his four seasons of the year and abundance of fours besides Nay the senses are also his for smelling is only a gentiler way of feeding Another tears his haire and is raving mad for the number three and then the Inner Temple and Middle are the same for they are both Temples Easter Term and Trinity Term differ but a few days Spring and Autumn are all one and rather than he 'l acknowledge above three senses he 'l split his mouth up to his ears Phi. what dost think Tim that I have nothing else to doe but to hear thee tattle over a company of foppish Similitudes if thou hast a mind to talk child speak sence if thou canst and learn of me to reason closely Tim. You are a most speciall pattern for reasoning indeed one may plainly see that by what you say in the tenth Chapter of your Leviathan and in the eighth of your Humane nature where you fall into a great rapture of the excellencies of power making every thing in the whole world that is good worthy and honourable to be power and nothing is to be valued or respected but upon the accompt of power Phi. And is not power a very good thing Tim. A most excellent thing I know nothing like it but the Philophers stone for it does all things and is all things either at present or heretofore or afterward Thus Beauty is honourable as a precedent sign of power generative and actions proceeding from strength are honourable as signs consequent of power motive Now if faculty had come in there instead of power it would not have done so well Again riches are honourable as signs of the power that acquired them gifts cost magnificence of houses are honourable c. as signes of riches A Mathematician is honourable because if he brings his knowledg into practice he is able to raise powerful fortifications and to make powerful engines and instruments of war A prudent man is honourable because he is powerfull in advice and a person of good natural wit and judgment is honourable because it signifies strong parts and powers In short Sir I perceive there is nothing either in actions or speeches in Arts or Sciences in wit or judgment in man woman or child that is good valuable but it is all upon the accompt of power Phi. I defy thee if thou goest about to make
any thing that I have said ridiculous Tim. No I need not because you have already done it to my hand for with such tricks and devices as these I 'le undertake to make a flageolet the most dreadfull and powerful thing upon the face of the whole earth For it either shall be powerful in it self or recommend me to the favour of those that have power or be a defence against power or it shall hire and purchase power or be in the road to power or be in the road to power or a signe of poweâ— or a sign of somewhat that is a sign of power And such things as these Philautus you call close connexion and demonstration which are nothing else but a company of small cheats and jingling fetches Phi. Before I goe any further Tim I doe pronounce thee to be the most saucy of all that belong to the whole race of mankind For thou railest at a venture and dost only skip up and down my writings as if thou didst intend to pick my pocket If thou resolvest to continue in this Humour and to think thy self worthy to speak in my ancient and Philosophical presence let 's pitch upon some fundamental point such as Status naturae est status belli and thou shalt see that thou art ten times more an Owle than I am a cheat and Iingler Tim. And I pray Sir may I be so bold which side doe you intend to hold Phi. Which side that 's a question very fit indeed for a Timothy to ask I hold that side that all Wise Sage Learned and Discreet men in the whole world doe hold Tim. I am sorry Sir that I have disturbed you but I must pray once again to know which that is Phi. I am asham'd to tell thee It is such a very silly question I doe hold then that all men naturally are Bears Dragons Lyons Wolves Rogues Raskalls Tim. I beseech you Sir hold no more there 's enough for any one man to hold I remember Philautus you told me Ä while ago that all men by nature were doggish spightfull and treacherous But I thought you had only said it because you found your self so inclin'd or in jest to scare me Phi. What dost think that I studied fourty or fifty years only to find out and maintain a jest dost think that the happiness and security of all the Kingdoms of the Earth depend upon a jest Thou art a very pretty fellow to discourse withall indeed Tim. I pray Sir by your favour how came it about that it was not found out by former Philosophers that all men as well as your self are naturally brutish and ravenous Phi. I wonder you 'l come over so often with as well as your self when I have so plainly told you that it is naturally so with all men Tim. Nay Sir be not angry I have so often heard an old story of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and of the great worth of Pythagoras Plato Aristotle Epictetus and Tully that I much wonder at your Doctrine Phi. Then upon my word you have heard a very story of a tub and of a company of children fools sotts and dunces Tim. Enough enough Phi. But I say not enough And if you 'l hold your prating I 'le shew you how it came about that the morals and politicks that have been written since the creation as they call it of the world were not all worth a rush till I set forth mine Tim. I 'le not speak again this half hour if you 'l but make out this handsomly Phi. It was thus then they went in a wrong method they took things for granted that were lyes and did not so much as consult common History and experience Tim. I profess Philautus this seems to go to the vâ—ry bottom of the business I long to hear this as much as ever poor child did for the teat in the first place you say they did not use a right method wherein I pray did they faile Phi. They should have done as I did they should have search'd into the humours dispositions passions and heart of mankind Tim. And did you Sir find there written Status naturae est status belli as 't is said Calis was upon Queen Marie's Phi. I perceive thou beginnest to prate again Hast thou seen a little Book of mine called Humane Nature Tim. Yes I think so Phi. You may easily know it 't is called Humane Nature or the fundamental Elements of Policy Tim. 'T is so and you might have call'd it as well Tu quâ—que or the jealous Lovers or the fundamental Lawes of catching of Quailes as of Policy Phi. Did you not promise me to be modest and 〈◊〉 to prate does this become you goe home and look in the glass Tim. Why have you discoursed me into a Bear I tell you Sir I have read over that same little Book called Humane Nature and whereas you 'd make the Reader believe by the title that he should find such strange fundamentals of Policy and as you there add according to philosophical principles not commonly known or asserted there 's not a word of any more fundamentals than is to be found in Iack Seton Stierius or Magirus besides some small mater that was shirk'd up in France from some of Cartes's acquaintance and spoyled in the telling I say as for all the rest Philautus it is as common as the Kings high way only according to you usual manner you labour much to disguise it with your own phrases and to displace words to cheat children Phi. Why doe you talk thus Tim. For no reason at all but only because it is true Thus we know that old Arstotle and his dull soakers understood no further of the great mysteries of the senses and their several objects but only bluntly to say that sense was a kind of knowledge occasâ—oned by some outward thing c. and that an object is a thing that causes that knowledge and that colour is the object of the eye and that sound is the object of the ear But when Philautus comes to Town he brings us news to purpose informing us that all conception proceeds from the action of the thing it self whereof it is the conception and when the action is present the conception it produceth is called sense there called stands in the right place and the thing by whose action the same is produced is Called the object of the sense That 's well placed again And that by sight we have a conception of colour which is all the notice and knowledge the object imparteth to us of its nature by the eye This ravishes and by hearing we have a conception called sound which is all the knowledge we have of the quality of the object from the ear Now who would not immediately spurr forth as far as Dover to meet a Philosopher that should bring home such rarities as these Phi. if thou shouldst set out Tim thou wouldst be set in the stocks before thou gettest to Rochester
repent nor recal it will be necessary in the beginning exactly to state the true conception or Idaea of a Bird for as much as the particular conceptions of Crow Iack-daw and Pye are comprehended under that common one of Bird And therefore that we may avoid-all equivocation which is the original of Errors and that there may be no quarrelling or disputing in following Ages we do ram down for the future Peace and Government of all Nations that the phantasme or conception of a Bird is a flying phantasme or conception Having thus warily and fundamentally determined what is a Bird in general we proceed now to the three Birds themselves and that we may do nothing without method the blackest and largest of them we call a Crow and seeing that likeness of colour begets likeness of conception we go on to the next whose conception is full out as black as a Crow but not altogether so large and this we call a Iack-daw and because that black strictly taken only for black is a more simple conception than black and white together therefore we thought fit to speak of a Pye in the last place which partakes of the two former conceptions as to black but differs from both as to white Phi. I prethee Tim what was the name of this Philosopher Tim. 'T is no matter for his name Sir You must needs acknowledge him to be a Philosopher of worth and very little inferiour to your self both as to reason and circumspection Phi. But where 's the state of war all this while That 's the thing I long to be at Tim and to shew thee for a Fish Tim. Let me but consider a little how that same Book de homine I don't mean your little English Humane nature came to be filled with such a heap of Opticks and then the Fish shall begin as soon as you will Phi. To make out that is as needless as to shew how a Coach goes down Holborn-hill Tim. I think I remember how it is viz. a man is a creature that has body and mind his mind has several faculties and amongst the rest there be five Senses and the most excellent of all these is Seeing and then presently pull away with Perspective Dioptricks Catoptricks Telescopes Microscopes and all the rest for fifty Pages together as long as there 's a Star to be seen in the Skie Phi. And why is it not proper to put in Opticks into a Treatise de Homine Tim. Not after the manner as you have done because we have an art by it self for that purpose You might as well have put in fifty Pages about Musick as about Opticks for man you know has as many ears as eyes But here 's the business Philautus you take very great pains in all things to be singular Where you should use Mathematicks there you will scarce let us have any at all and when there 's not the least need then you pour them forth as if you were bottomless And thus many a Reader comes suppose to one of your Books that has an ordinary title and there finding a company of strange Mathematical Schemes and not understanding them he presently cries out What a brave man is this Philautus What wonders and rarities does he afford upon such a common subject Surely he has gone the deepest that ever searched into Nature I tell you Philautus he that has a mind to take advantage of this humour of yours and to run things together by force that have no relation he may easily thrust the fifteen Books of Euclid into the London Dispensatory or Iustinian's Institutes into a Common Almanack I shall not now stand to tell you after what pills and under what month they might come in because I am loth to hinder the show Phi. Be not too secure and presumptuous Tim for if I don't shew thee for a fish I 'le shew thee to be a Beast and all mankind besides Tim. Nay if I have so much good company I had much rather turn out to grass than stand in alone and be melancholy come Sir flourish then and let 's begin Phi. You know Tim that I have laid a foundation for this in my Humane Nature and 't is an easy matter now to finish the business Tim. Yes truly I have as I told you before looked over that same foundation of yours called Humane Nature and I think it much more fit for the bottom of minc'd pyes than of any Policy or government Be pleased to goe on Sir and shew some other reasons why the ancient Philosophers did not think as you doe that all men are naturally beasts You told me as I remember somewhat else wherein they miscarried besides that they went in a wrong method and did not first design a Treatise of Humane Nature Phi. I did so and it was thus viz. they all blindly running one after another and taking severall things for granted that were perfectly false they laid down that for a fundamental truth which is no otherwise than a fundamental lie Tim. That was a great oversight indeed a fundamental truth and a fundamental lie I profess Sir they dwell a great way asunder But I pray what was that fundamental lie Phi. That man was a sociable creature Tim. Lack a day how easie a matter is it for old folks to dote and slaver and for young ones to be deceived and lick up the spittle I 'd have laid three cakes to a farthing that my old Masters had been in the right But are you very very certain that they are not perhaps you may have taken yours upon trust as well as they did theirs and if so then courage cakes for I don't intend to be a Centaure Phi. That 's a good one indeed as if they who had all their Philosophy from the tap-droppings of their predccessors and the moral tradition of the Barber's Chair were not much more subject to take thing upon trust than one who supecting all kind of opinions have turn'd over the whole History of the world and Nature her self Tim. And there belike you found that man is not a sociable creature I wish there were some way to compound this business for you know Sir the world is full of trade acquaintace neighbours and relations and for the most part man has had the crack and fame for five or six thousand years of being tolerably tame and methinks it is a great pity now at last to be sent to the Tower amongst the Lyons or to be driven to Smithfield with a mastiffe and a great cudgell I pray Sir what doe you mean by those words when you say that man is not a sociable creature Phi. What canst not construe two words of Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I mean as all people mean that man is not born fit for society Tim. He is usually born with two Leggs to goe about his business with a pair of hands to tell money with a couple of eyes to see if there be any Brass and
with a tongue to discourse when he has nothing else to doe And therefore I must be troublesome once more and desire you to explain what you mean by a mans being not born fit for society Phi. Thou askest questions Tim as if thou didst intend to send me to market When I say that a man is not born fit for society I mean that men naturally doe not seek society for its own sake Tim. I must desire of you that you would let own sake alone for the present and let us first see whether men do naturally seek society and I 'le promise you not to forget to have it considered for whose sake or upon what acompt they doe it And therefore I pray Sir answer me punctually whether naturally men doe seeke society or not Phi. To be punctual Tim and please thee I answer they doe not Tim. You know Philautus that men are apt to sort to herd they love to enquire to confer and discourse and when people get into corners and covet to be alone we usually count such to be sick distemper'd melancholy or towards mad And I suppose the question is not concerning such but concerning healthful and sober men Phi. There you are quite out Tim for when I say that men naturally doe not seek society or are not born fit for society I don't mean full grown men such as are able to carry or eat a quarter of beef but I mean children which is plain in the very phrase it self Tim if thou wouldst mind any thing it being there said not born fit so that to say a man is not born fit for society is all one as to say that a man newly born is not fit for society or does not seek society Tim. Well let it go so we 'l see what will become of this business it begins to drive bravely we are got thus far that children do not desire or seek society But if so Philautus how comes it about that they desire or seek after company I don't mean that when the Nurses back is turned they skip out of the cradle and with a huge ashen Plant run away to the next fair Bull-bayting or football match but they do not care for being in the dark they are discontented and cry when they are left alone and love to see now and then a humane face if it does not look as if it would bite Phi. All this is only for victuals Tim. Some of it I grant you may be for victuals But they can't eat from one end of the Nation to the other And one child oftimes takes delight in the company of another to whom it has never a load of corn to fell neither does it intend to eat or suck up that other child Phi. Thou art quite beside the saddle again Tim for when I say a child doth not seek or desire society by society I don't mean crying for the pap or sucking bottle or to be daunc'd by Dad or to giggle it amongst its Camrades But I mean by society bonds contracts covenants leagues transferring of rights and such like things which are proper to Cities Communities and Societies Dost hear me Tim I mean by society these sort of common-wealth affaires which thou knowest children doe neither understand nor are able to mannage And now I suppose thy thick skull begins to open a little and to be enlightned one had as good have half score to inform as one heavy Tim. Tim. Indeed Sir it must be acknowledged that you have taken great pains But for all that I pray may not I make bold to say that children desire society in your sence for they seek it so soon as they are able and doe perceive the intentions thereof Phi. Thou wilt never leave this dull trick of not understanding I must therefore condescend and let thee know that by seeking society I mean actual entering into society that is being ingaged in conveyances bargains publick offices and such things as I before mentioned This and only this is truly to be said sociable Tim. And is this all that you have now to say have you nothing more to add Phi. What need is there of any more Tim. Then doe I very much pity the poor distressed creatures that have been thus long gulled with same and phrases Phi. How so Tim. How so do you say what would you have a Child come out of the womb saying over Noverint Vniversi with a pen in one hand and wax in t'other and fall presently to signing sealing and delivering or before it be dressed shreek aloud and cry faggots faggots five for sixpence is this the principle that you were so many years finding out is this the fruits of Mathematicks long observation fundamental casting about and bottoming of things did you goe into the bowels and heart blood of Nature to bring up nothing else but this Phi. I prethe Tim don't make such long sentences for thou wilt have nothing to say by and by I tell thee that this principle that I have now revealed to thee is the most weighty principle that belongs to all Humane Nature Tim. 'T is very weighty indeed and it is great pity but that you should be entomb'd at Westminster and statued up at Gresham Colledge for the great moral discoverer of the Age. Phi. Why for all your jeering Tim I hope you do not imagine that a child can trade and covenant or bear any publick office for the good of the Common-wealth Tim. No indeed I do not think it can unless you would have it jump off the Nurses lap and run away to the Exchange and there ask for the Spanish or Virginia walk or have a woman brought to bed of a Iustice of peace or a Maior with his Macebearer and tipt staves before him Phi. Very good very good then it seemes at last you are willing to acknowledge that I said true Tim. And so did all men before you Phi. Nay pardon me there for they say quite contrary Tim. Which of them ever said that any man was actually born a Constable or silk weaver Phi. But they say he 's born fit Tim. So doe you or else I cannot read your own Annotations upon the second Article of your first Chapter de Cive wherein you say that to man by nature as man as soon as he is born solitude is an enemy And that all men are desirous of congress and mutuall correspondence and doe enter into society as soon as they understand it Phi. But this is not pure insant nature but education Tim. I should laugh indeed to see a Marchant to ship away a Baby in blankets to be his Factor beyond sea or to see a child of half a year old with its whistle and rattle set swaggering in Commission upon the bench with my Lord. A child I suppose may be admitted to be born apt to walk speak reason and discourse although it be above a week before it leaps up the table and cry Nego 〈◊〉 The short
of your opinion is this Philautus that children fools and madmen are not very ambitious of being of the Privy Council and if they were invited thereunto would do themselves and the Nation but little service So that if right reason which Philautus you so much talk of and pretend to does determine that the Cradle Bedlam and a Gentleman's kitchen shall be the only standard and measure of Humane Nature then truly Philautus must be acknowledged by all for a most mighty Philosopher but if otherwise he must e'en be content to sit down with his neighbours And if you remember Philautus I gave you an hint of this at first viz. That if your opinions were thoroughly search'd into and that all disguise of phrase was laid aside they would either be found to be absolutely false or else to be the same that every mortal believes And this gave me hopes of compounding the business Phi. Nay hold you there for I am against sharing or dividing of truth I don't like that cowardly trick of compounding for an assertion or having my opinions insured Sink or swim I love to run the whole venture and to get all or lose all And certain I am that I say somewhat quite different from what is commonly known or asserted Tim. So you know you promised us in the title of your Humane Nature where I looked till my eyes asked and I could find nothing but ancient venerable stufâ— new cased and dawb'd over And I perceive you are of the same mind still and think that you hold and maintaine such things as were never held or maintained before I pray Sir let 's heare one of those same things that you thus swagger of Phi. Then let me tell you Tim that I do hold maintain positively say that the state of nature is a state of war which is a truth so great bold and generous that all the Ancients wanted parts wit and courage to find it out or defend it Tim. I am confident that this will prove just such another story as that of the sociable creature and I must needs say that it was done like a wit and Hec. besides to find out and hold that which every child may hold Phi. That 's as good as I heard this fortnight Thou speakest like one that is versed in business and the world What shall a child be able to defend that which lay hid for so many Ages and took me such paines to discover Tim. You shall hear the Child hold it and demonstrate it too that 's more viz. thus the state of War you know is a state wherein people have not engaged or obliged themselves to one another by any covenants bargains or transferring of rights So far is true is it not Phi. Well go on Tim. And you know that children or infants which are in the true state of nature cannot covenant or bargain release or transfer and therefore you cannot but know that that dreadful business called the state of war must needs follow Phi. Thou art Tim certainly the worthiest of thy kind This is my very proofe you make use of my very way Tim. I do so because no body but a child would ever have made such a noise and rattle with a company of words and to mean so little by them Phi. Why what 's the matter now what is it that you would have had meant Tim. Alas Sir when you told me as you do in your Epistle Dedicatory de Cive That man to man is an arrant Wolfe except it be for his interest to be otherwise That there 's no living amongst strangers but by the two daughters of War deceipt and violence That naturally men are all brutall ravenous and rapacious I say when I heard this I expected the whole world naturally to be all in armes and an uproare tearing and worrying one another like mad and to hear nothing but down with him there hang him with his own gutts give him a pound of melted lead for a julip to cool his pluck split him down the chine or flea him alive and roast him with a couple of awles in his eyes when I Philautus heard of a state of war I profess I could think of little less than all this and so did most people besides and when all comes to all Philautus has found out a great moral secret viz. That Whelps can't see till they be nine days old nor a child can't speak unless it has a spoon nor goe to market before it can goe alone Phi. Is this all that I say Tim. 'T is all and every bit and scrap of all For like a great searcher into Nature you only observe that we are children before we are men and children can't speak and where no speech there can be no bargain or engagement or treaty for termes of peace and where no bargain c. there must needs be the Devil war Phi. I profess Tim this confidence of thine does almost anger me to utter some vast sense beyond thy worth Tim. If I thought that were the way to make you speak wiser I 'd carry on the designe and endeavour to improve my self for that very purpose and I 'd not only be very confident but I 'd be as saucy as I could contrive Phi. Then know Tim that I have reserved a reason for such sauciness as thine and therefore I do pronounce that children may not only be said to be in a state of war meerly because they cannot enter into Leagues and offer and receive termes of peace but that we oftimes see that they actually gripe and demand things to which they have not the least right or title which if denyed they presently out of fury cry quarrell fight and scratch poor Nurse or Parent it self now this Tim does not only demonstrate their naturall dispositions to war but that without any affront reason or pretence of justice they actually fall on and have no respect at all to our meums and tuums Tim. Thus have I seen a spanish-leather shoe kick'd into the fire and perished in the involving flames and which would make a heart to bleed a whole poringer of sweetned milk with its topling white bread rouling up and down upon the uncertain floore and the little state of Nature as hard worrying the righteous inoffensive Nurse as ever poor Dogg was worryed by Hare And inquiring into the quarrell and occasion of the war I found that the wicked and ravenous young Centaure against all Conscience and the establish'd lawes of the Realm had most unjustly and feloniously sat upon a whole yard of red inkle Phi. And did it not affect thee Tim and make thee sigh again and wert thou not converted thereby and fully convinced that the State of Nature was a state of war this methinks was a very Providentiall instance Tim. I was fully perswaded Sir by that and some other instances that children doe not know the exact difference between freehold and copyhold And when they take a
it shall rain any absurdiâ—ies so long as we do not suppose it to rain Watch-men Bell-men Lantâ—rns and Psalms for we intend only an ordinary civil shower of perfect men Phi. I am likely to do thee much good indeed We are inquiring what is the pure candid condition of nature and thou comest in with thy Civil shower which supposes Government society and all the absurdities imaginable and begs the whole question that is in controversie Is this you that promised to suppose so fairly thou shalt e'en be called Tim the fair supposer Tim. This 't is to be so much for self preservation it makes people as curious and fearful of their reputation as of their limbs I speak Philautus only of an ordinary shower of men and you snort and boggle as if I had laid a thousand fox-traps and barrels of gun-power in the road you may put out the word Civil if you please I intended no advantage by it Phi. Well then if you 'l leave out your tricks and keep to your pure plain ordinary men I do not at all question but the 〈◊〉 will go on my side Tim. What are you resolved then that they must needs have a brush at boxes before they set on the old hen and bacon Must they needs upon first sight set up their tayls and bristles and fall a snaâ—ling and swearing and tearing one anothers throatâ— out Phi. You do not hear me say so but you must be forced to 〈◊〉 me that they are as yet in most absolute state of war Tim. Why so Phi. Because they have not as yet entered into any League nor concluded any Treaty nor so much as made any overtâ—â—es for Alliâ—need Tim. That 's right unless they happened as they came tumbling down to call in at old Ioâ—es of upper Enfield two miles beyond Cancasus and there crack'd 〈◊〉 and shak'd hands Phi. But if they did so they did not come down inpurâ—â— naturalibus Tim. And is this all the reason you have that these men are in a state of war viz. because they have not as yet discoursed made overtures covenanted Phi. Yes truly and it is a most able one upon my reputation Tim. Now could I be tempted to go home and spend a little time in laughing and not to talk one word more for this proves just such another discovery as we had before For after much wrangling and dispute we found out I remember at last that a sucking Child was not fit to command an Army or to make a speech at the head of it and now we have found out that these same dropt men can't enter into a league till they have spoken with one another neither can they speak till they open their mouths and therefore they are in a most dismal state of war because when they do meet it is possible for them to fight having sworn not any thing at all to the contrary What Philautus would you have Roger speak to the next tree to run away in all hast and out of pure natural kindness and sweet sincere humanity invite Dick and the rest of the Pineyards to a Wesphalia Ham and Pigeons Whereas Roger never saw any of them as yet nor knows any thing of their being come to Pines Or would you have Dick to testifie his inward disposition to pure society it self grasp a whole armful of aire and fall to treating and covenanting and at last enter into a close league therewith The summ of all Philautus amounts only to this that there are four honest Rogues come to Town from the four several quarters of the world and falling either upon several places of the Island or being a great mist or coming before day light they have not as yet seen one another and having not seen one another they have not as yet discoursed treated or compounded and therefore they are actually in a state of â—ar i. e. they having not spoken at all it is impossible that they should have spoken to each other Now if you take delight in the phrase you may if you please call this a state of war a state of Devils or what state you will but for my part I think there 's nothing in it only a small trick of words There 's the huge King of China and another great man that dwells t'other way I never made any overtures treaty or composition with them and yet for all that I don't find any grumblings or cursings of humane nature within me or any prickings and pushings forth toward any war Indeed I have found my self sometimes at some small variance with the Turk but that is because his Rogues use to droll a little too severely upon my Merchant men Neither Philautus would I have you think supposing it were worth the while to insist upon a phrase that you have justified this kind of supposed state of nature to be a state of war by saying as you somewhere do that the state of war is not only actual fighting but it is the whole time that the variance or quarrel last For I grant that war consists not in the number or length of battles but in a readiness and resolution to contend But withall we may easily conceive much more reason to call the intervals between battle and battle war or the whole time from proclamation thereof to the concluding of peace than to call that a state of war which has no pretence for any such name from any quarrel that ever was yet but from one that unreasonably may be I say I think there ought to be some difference made between these two states and you your self Philautus must not be too backward to acknowledge it because of your very own definition of war cap. 1. Art 12. Where you say that war is that same time in which the will of contesting by force is fully declared by words or deeds Now if Roger had challenged Dick to play with him to morrow three first hits for the Kingdom or that Dick had come behind Roger and struck up his heels here had been Declaration enough to signifie and justifie war But to say that they are at war without either words or deeds only because they have not bargain'd is not agreeable to what you say your self Phi. You have talked and talked I know not what Tim. But for all that will you venture to say that these four strangers are actually a body politick Tim. I 'le say no such thing at all But I say that this same state of war which you make such a clatter with is only a war of meer words and therefore to lay aside this same blind mans buff and decide the controversie let us see a little what these same Pineyards will do when they first meet And so if you please Sir about Sun-rising wee 'l give them a view unmuzzle and let them off the slip And now hola Roger over with him there Dick collar him close Towser gripe him under the small ribs and pluck out his speen
Tumbler O bravely recovered Now hold it out for the credit of the state of nature and the family of the Dicks Now fall upon his chest and strike his heart out of his mouth and dash that Rogues eye out of the Island Phi. I prethee Tim what art thou doing of What an uproar and noise thou makest Thou didst talk just now of four honest Rogues that were come to Town and thou hast sent for four Furies I think Tim. I did it only Sir to give you a small sample of the state of nature They must have a brush I suppose Sir before they go to breakfast Phi. I pray Tim do so much as part them and let 's go on softly and soberly and then see what will follow Tim. I can exactly tell you Sir what will follow viz. if humane nature upon first view pricks up its eares and sets up its skut and falls presently to tearing slicing and slashing then the battle goes on your side but if reason and humane nature directs these people to treat and live peaceably together then I count the day is mine Phil. Nay Tim the field is not so easily gained You think of your tropies a little too soon Tim. However methinks at present I am a little apt to value my hopes For here 's nothing of prejudice education custom Father or Mother League or Covenant but only pure terse humane nature newly drawn out of the clouds Phi. Let me consider a little You say if they fall to quarrelling and fighting when ever they first meet then and not else it is to be judged that humane nature inclines to war or that the state of nature is a state of war Now I thought thou didst go on too quick For let me tell thee Tim that that is as much false as I am older than thou art For actual fighting and destroying is not that alone which is to be termed 〈◊〉 For whether these Pineyards fight or not so long as they have not treated and bargained they cannot properly be said to be sociable Tim. This we have had over so often that I am quite tired viz. they cannot properly be said actually to have made Covenants Leagues and Bonds till they have actually made Covenants Leagues and Bonds Do but resolve to hold to that and you may easily defend your self against all the forces in the world by sea or by land Phi. But for all you are so brisk Tim How do you certainly know that they will not fall to breaking of heads and leggs Did you stand behind a tree and hear the parley Or had you word sent you by the Pinaean packet boat Tim. I need not go so far for my Intelligence Philautus I had it nearer home For to save Iourneys and charges of Forreign Letters I alwaies love to keep a little right reason in the house with which your Book of Politicks is so crawlingly full and from which alone not from general agreement of the most wise men and learned Nations or the common consent of mankind which you there despise you lay down for the first and fundamental law of Nature that peace is to be sought where it may be found Now in this same little land of Pines we doe suppose there growes abundance of peace if the late come guests will but seek for 't because being never inhabited there was never so much as a cut finger dropt upon 't Phi. Now I have catch'd thee bravely Tim. Now I do not question but to make abundance of money of thee I do say indeed that right reason tells us that the first and fundamentall law of Nature is to seeke peace where it may be had and that the first special law of Nature derived from that fundamentall one is this that the right of all men to all things ought not to be retained but that some certain rights ought to be transferred or relinquish'd But you must consider Tim that I establish these laws upon quite different grounds from those which are generally given by old Moralists For they flatter you and feed you with a fiddle faddle of mens seeking society for its own sake and dividing or compounding the common right by natural equity and justice Wheras it is plain to me and all right Reasoners that men meerly lye upon the luâ—ch for society and seek it only for pleasure or profit or in one word out of mutual fear and they are willing to share or divide the common right not because there is any inward reason they should do so but because it is much safer than to be engaged in War perpetually Take this along with thee Tim there 's Doctrine enough for this fortnight Tim. Ther 's a little too much for once Sir and therefore I must desire you to cast it into two parts You say in the first place that we have held for many ages that men seek society for its own sake I pray why may we not hold it one summer more Phi. Why If by Nature one man should love another that is as man every man would equally love every man as being equally man and not pick here and there according as profit honour or other things do direct him Tim. Now upon my Conscience Philautus you meane by a man only a thing standing right up like a Heron with a head and a few eyes thereunto belonging For if he chance to speake or listen to buy or sell give or receive if he be peacefull faithfull modest affable temperate prudent ingenious or be of any worth or use imaginable then we seek after such and fort with such not for society but out of mutual fear So that to enter into society for its own simple single sake were only to enter into it for the sake of a good word that must not signify any thing For if it does it must not be called society but plot profit design or the like Phi. And dost thou think Tim that I will not believe my own eyes and ears before this nothing that thou sayest Is there any better way to understand by what advice and upon what accompt people mee and enter into society than by observing what they do when they are met For suppose Tim they meet for traffique is it not plain that every man minds his business and endeavours to dispatch what he design'd If to discharge some offiâ—â— is it not to carry on a kind of a market friendship which has more of jealousie than true love And lastly if for diversion and recreation of mind to discourse is not here visibly at the bottom either advantage or vain glory Tim. This must needs be right and I wonder how I came to mistrust it For suppose I goe to market to buy corn and meat for my family and when I come 〈…〉 the length and colour of his eye-browes and also an exact accompt 〈…〉 and complexion of the 〈◊〉 that stood 〈◊〉 the sacks mouth and affect them both most deaâ—ly and return home most vehemently
after viz. If any man pretend somewhat to tend necessarily to his preservation which yet he himself doth not confidently believe so he may offend against the Laws of Nature For this is a further acknowledgement of what you said before and shews plainly that hypocrisie in the very state of Nature is an unreasonable thing Phi. You may fool your self Tim and gape for as many acknowledgements as you will But I hold and say that the Laws of nature in the state of nature are silent provided that they be referred not to the mind but to the actions of men Tim. I remember you say this in the second Article of your fifth Chapter But if you had not forgot what you had said upon the 18. Art of your 3. Chap. you would have granted that some natural Laws do more than meerly buz in the mind during the very state of war or nature Phi. Why what do I say there Tim. No great matter Sir only I find there these words viz. but there are certain natural Laws whose Exercise I pray mind that word ceaseth not even in the time of war it self For as you go on I cannot understand what drunkenness or cruelty that is revenge which respects not the future good can advance towards peace or the preservation of any man Phi. Now what dost thou infer from this Tim What purchase dost thou intend to make Tim. No great purchase Sir only I do think that the second Proposition of Euclid does not altogether contradict the first so much as these two places do one another Phi. And now thou thinkest thou hast got me so fast whereas I can come off easily only by saying that I did not mean all the Laws of Nature when I said that the Laws of nature are silent in the state of nature Tim. If you please Sir you may so explain your self But however if you your self Philautus will bestow upon me only one or two Laws that ought to be observed in the state of Nature I take it more kindly than if any body else had given me half a score Phi. I always found it an endless thing to reason and discourse people into any soundness of mind especially as to Morals who would not make any observations of their own And therefore I prethee Tim go spend one quarter of an hour in the streets and I 'le stay here and observe well what people are doing of and when thou comest back again I do not at all question but that thou wilt fully believe what I have taught thee to be true namely that the world is wholly disposed of and guided by self-interest Tim. I need not go now Sir because in the morning as I came hither I found it exactly so as you say In one place there was a man buying a cloak as hard as ever he could not in the least for me but for himself wholly and the seller he claws up the money and without saying one word to his Neighbours pockets it all up In another place there was a Porter lying close upon the lurch at a Tavern-door who had he no interest to drive on there might e'en as well have been here upon the walks Phi. Thou needest not speak any more Tim for I do say thus much unto thee that unless thou dyest a fool thou wilt perceive that interest is the very first principle of Nature and reason and that men must mind themselves if they intend to live Tim. Yes Sir So let them if they doe not overmind themselves and cry only Milk when they should cry milk and water and score up Claret when it should be Cider People ought Sir to take care of themselves but I would not have them pick blind mens pockets and cheat children of there Bread and Butter and then admire their own parts and quickness of sight Interest Philautus is a word innocent enough but only when it crosses equity and reason which according to you it never can doe being the first dictate of right reason And therefore if righteousness or mercy or any other good thing happen to be against this my first dictate of right reason I must desire them to withdraw for a time for at present they are very troublsome and nonsence beside Phi. And wilt thou be so childish after all these instructions as not to believe that interest is and ought to be the first principle Tim. It must needs be the first Sir for that very reason your self give concerning seeking of peace namely because the rest follow Which you might easily make sure of if the Printer did not misplace things and so disappoint you Phi. I perceive Tim that thou art much given to delight in toys and to neglect things of moment My main reason that self interest is to be looked upon as the first Principle of Nature was because I found that every man was desirous of what was good for him and shâ—n'd what was hurtful and evil and this he did by a certain impulsion of Nature no less than that whereby a stone moves downward Tim. By your leave Philautus I think that this reason seems to promise somewhat bigger than the former but it is not so true For though children desire and use meanes to get all things that please them and avoid and flie back from all things that hurt them even as a stone comes downward yet it is to be supposed that what men desire or avoid they do it not as a stone comes downward but with consideration and reason and thereupon ought to submit to poverty and other inconveniences rather than to reproach Humane Nature and be guilty of an unreasonable action And therefore a child that pulls hard for a jewel which cost the owner perhaps much trouble and many dangerous voiages shall be excused but there 's little reason that a great lasie Lubber that spends his time in the Chimney-corner and Ale should snatch it away and not cry for 't first Phi. If he and his family be ready to starve that alters the case very much for 't is great pity that any rational creatures should be lost Tim. Starve or not starve 't is all one for that for 't is a very lawfull cordial so that it be but his opinion that he wants at present or may afterward want For seeing that right reason tells him that life is to be preserved it tells him also as you well advise Ch. 1. Art 8. that he must use the meanes to preserve it and seeing that no man can know when another is sufficiently alive so well as he himself therefore as you advise further Art 9. he is to judge what is requisite and convenient for that purpose And therefore sayes the self preserver There 's a company of people who when I was out of the way have gon and divided the world without asking my leave or taking my counsell or consent I am sure there 's no fault to be found with Nature for she was alwayes very carefull and