between us and what I had said to many who I knew had inform'd him of it and which indeed I had sent to himself upon the first publishing of his Leviathan I thought my self eveâ— bound to give him some satisfaction why I had entertained so evil an opinion of his Book When the Prince went first to Paris from Iersey and My Lords Capel and Hopton stayed in Iersey together with my self I heard shortly after that Mr. Hobbes who was then at Paris had printed his Book De Cive there I writ to Dr. Earles who was then the Princes Chaplain and his Tutor to remember me kindly to Mr. Hobbes with whom I was well acquainted and to desire him to send me his Book De Cive by the same token that Sid. Godolphin who had bin kill'd in the late War had left him a Legacy of two hundred pounds The Book was immediately sent to me by Mr. Hobbes with a desire that I would tell him whether I was sure that there was such a Legacy and how he mighâ— take notice of it to receive it I sent him word that he might depend upon it for a truth and that I believed that if he found some way secretly to the end there might be no public notice of it in regard of the Parliament to demand it of his Brother Francis Godolphin who in truth had told me of it he would pay it This information was the ground of the Dedication of this Book to him whom Mr. Hobbes had never seen When I went some few years after from Holland with the King after the Murder of his Father to Paris from whence I went shortly his Majesties Ambassador into Spain Mr. Hobbes visited me and told me that Mr. Godolphin confessed the Legacy and had paid him one hundred pounds and promised to pay the other in a short time for all which he thank'd me and said he owed it to me for he had never otherwise known of it When I return'd from Spain by Paris he frequently came to me and told me his Book which he would call Leviathan was then Printing in England and that he receiv'd every week a Sheet to correct of which he shewed me one or two Sheets and thought it would be finished within little more then a moneth and shewed me the Epistle to Mr. Godolphin which he meant to set before it and read it to me and concluded that he knew when I read his Book I would not like it and thereupon mention'd some of his Conclusions upon which I asked him why he would publish such doctrine to which after a discourse between jest and earnest upon the Subject he said The truth is I have a mind to go home Within a very short time after I came into Flanders which was not much more then a moneth from the time that Mr. Hobbes had conferred with me Leviathan was sent to me from London which I read with much appetite and impatience Yet I had scarce finish'd it when Sir Charles Cavendish the noble Brother of the Duke of Newcastle who was then at Antwerp and a Gentleman of all the accomplishments of mind that he wanted of body being in all other respects a wonderful Person shewed me a Letter he had then receiv'd from Mr. Hobbes in which he desir'd he would let him know freely what my opinion was of his Book Upon which I wished he would tell him that I could not enough wonder that a Man who had so great a reverence for Civil Government that he resolv'd all Wisdom and Religion it self into a simple obedience and submission to it should publish a Book for which by the constitution of any Government now establish'd in Europe whether Monarchical or Democratical the Author must be punish'd in the highest degree and with the most severe penalties With which answer which Sir Charles sent to him he was hot pleased and found afterwards when I return'd to the King to Paris that I very much censur'd his Book which he had presented engross'd in â—â—llam in a marvellous fair hand to the King and likewise found my judgment so far confirmed that few daies before I came thither he was compell'd secretly to fly out of Paris the Justice having endeavour'd to apprehend him and soon after escap'd into England where he never receiv'd any disturbance After the Kings return he came frequently to the Court where he had too many Disciples and once visited me I receiv'd him very kindly and invited him to see me often but he heard from so many hands that I had no good opinion of his Book that he came to me only that one time and methinks I am in a degree indebted to him to let him know some reason why I look with so much prejudice upon his Book which hath gotten him so much credit and estimation with some other men I am not without some doubt that I shall in this discourse which I am now engaged in transgress in a way I do very heartily dislike and frequently censure in others which is sharpness of Language and too much reproching the Person against whom I write which is by no means warrantable when it can be possibly avoided without wronging the truth in debate Yet I hope nothing hath fallen from my Pen which implies the least undervaluing of Mr. Hobbes his Person or his Parts But if he to advance his opinion in Policy too imperiously reproches all men who do not consent to his Doctrine it can hardly be avoided to reprehend so great presumtion and to make his Doctrines appear as odious as they ought to be esteemed and when he shakes the Principles of Christian Religion by his new and bold Interpretations of Scripture a man can hardly avoid saying He hath no Religion or that he is no good Christian and escape endeavouring to manifest and expose the poison that lies hid and conceled Yet I have chosen rather to pass by many of his enormous sayings with light expressions to make his Assertions ridiculous then to make his Person odious for infusing such destructive Doctrine into the minds of men who are already too licentious in judging the Precepts or observing the Practice of Christianity The Survey of Mr. Hobbes's Introduction IT is no wonder that Mr. Hobbes runs into so many mistakes and errors throughout his whole discourse of the nature of Government from the nature of Mankind when he laies so wrong a foundation in the very entrance and Introduction of his Book as to make a judgment of the Passions and Nature of all other Men by his own observations of himself and believes pag. 2. that by looking into himself and considering what he doth when he do's think opine reason hope fear c. and upon what grounds he shall thereby read and know what are the thoughts and passions of all other men upon the like occasions And indeed by his distinction in the very subsequent words pag. 2. between the similitude of passions and the similitude of the object
alone and when it is once found to be in him alone he will not be long able to defend his own Propriety or his own Soveraignty It is Machiavels exception against the entertaining of foreign Forces that they are only mercenary and therefore indifferent in their affections which party wins or loses and no doubt those Soldiers fight most resolutely who fight to defend their own And surely they who have nothing of their own to lose but their lives are as apt to throw those away where they should not as where they should be exposed and it is the usual Artifice in all Seditions for the Leaders and Promoters of them to perswade the People that the tendency and consequence of such and such actions don by the Magistrate extends to the depriving them of all their propriety the jealousie of which hurries them into all those acts of rage and despair which prove so fatal to Kingdoms And there was never yet a wise and fortunate prince who hath not enervated those Machinations by all the professions and all the vindications of that Propriety which they are so vigilant to preserve and defend And therefore it is a wonderful propesterous foundation to support a Government to declare that the Subject hath no propriety in any thing that excludes the Soveraign from a right of disposing it and it may be easily believ'd that there is not one Prince in Europe I mean that is civiliz'd for of the absolute power of the Great Turk from whence Mr. Hobbes hath borrowed his Model we shall have occasion to discourse in another place would be able to retain his Soveraignty one whole year after he should declare as Mr. Hobbes doth that his Subjects have no propriety in any thing they possess but that he may dispose of all they have For tho they do too often invade that propriety and take somwhat from them that is not their own they bear it better under the notion of oppression and rapine and as they look upon it as the effect of some powerful Subjects evil advice which will in time be discover'd and reform'd by the justice of the Prince as hath often fallen out then they would ever do under a claim of right that could justly take away all they have because it is not the Subjects but their own And if Mr. Hobbes had taken the pains and known where to have bin inform'd of the Proceedings and Transactions of Wâ—lliam the Conqueror he would have found cause to believe that that great King did ever dexterously endeavor from the time that he was assured that his Possession would not be disturb'd to divest himself of the Title of a Conqueror and made his Legal Claim to what he had got by the Will of Edward the Confessor whose Name was precious to the Nation and who was known to have a great Friendship for that Prince who had now recover'd what had bin his And he knew so well the ill consequence which must attend the very imagination that the Nation had lost its Propriety that he made hast to grant them an assurance that they should still enjoy all the benefits and priviledges which were due to them by their own Laws and Customs by which they should be still govern'd as they were during that Kings whole Reign who had enough of the unquestionable Demesnes and Lands belonging to the Crown of which he was then possessed without a Rival and belonging to those great men who had perish'd with their Posterity in the Battel with Harold to distribute to those who had born such shares and run such hazards in his prosperous adventure And those Laws and Customs which were before the Conquest are the same which the Nation and Kingdom have bin since govern'd by to this day with the addition of those Statutes and Acts of Parliament which are the Laws of the successive Kings with which they have gratifi'd their Subjects in providing such new security for them and advantages to the public as upon the experience and observation of the Ages and Times when they were made contributed to the honor and glory of the King as well as the happiness of the People many of which are but the Copies and Transcripts of ancient Land-marks making the Characters more plain the legible of what had bin practic'd and understood in the preceding Ages and the observation whereof are of the same profit and convenience to King and People Such were the Laws in Tullies time which Mr. Hobbes wonderfully cites to prove that which Tully never heard of and which indeed is quite contrary to the end of his Discourse Pag. 127. Is it possible that Tully could ever have said Let the Civil Law be once abandoned or but negligently guarded not to say oppressed and there is nothing that any man can be sure to receive from his Ancestor or to leave to his Children and again take away the Civil Law and no man knows what is his own and what another mans I say he could never have mention'd and insisted upon this grand security of man-kind if he had understood the Law to be nothing but the breath of the Soveraign who could grant and dissolve or repeal this Law with the speaking a word that his will or fancy dictates to him How can any man receive from his Ancestor or leave to his Children if he ben oâ— sure that his Ancestor had and that his Children shall have a propriety It was the importance of and delight in this propriety that produc'd that happy and beneficial agreement between the Soveraign power and the naked Subject which is mention'd before that introduc'd the beauty of Building and the cultivating the Earth by Art as well as Industry by securing men that they and their Children should dwell in the Houses they were at the charge to build and that they should reap the harvest of those Lands which they had taken the pains to sow Whatsoever is of Civility and good Manners all that is of Art and Beauty or of real and solid Wealth in the World is the product of this paction and the child of beloved Propriety and they who would strangle this Issue desire to demolish all Buildings eradicate all Plantations to make the Earth barren and man-kind to live again in Tents and nurish his Cattle by successive marches into those Fields where the grass grows Nothing but the joy in Propriety reduc'd us from this barbarity and nothing but security in the same can preserve us from returning into it again Nor will any man receive so great prejudice and damage by this return as the Kings and Princes themselves who had a very ample recompence which they still enjoy by dividing their unprofitable propriety with their Subjects having ever since receiv'd much more profit from the propriety in the hands of the Subjects then they did when it was in their own or then they do from that which they reserv'd to themselves and they continue to have the more or less
such constitution of his can be repeal'd and made void but in the same manner and with his consent But we say that he may prescribe or consent to such a method in the form and making these Laws that being once made by him he cannot but in the same form repeal or alter them and he is oblig'd by the Law of Justice to observe and perform this contract and he cannot break it or absolve himself from the observation of it without violation of justice and any farther obligation upon him then of justice I discourse not of For the better cleering of this to that kind of reason by which Mr. Hobbes is swai'd let us suppose this Soveraignty to reside and be fix'd in an assembly of men in which kind of Government it is possible to find more marks and foot-steps of such a deputing and assigning of interests as Mr. Hobbes is full of then we can possibly imagine in the original institution of Monarchy If the Soveraign power be deputed into the hands of fifteen and any vacant place to be suppli'd by the same Autority that made choice of the first fifteen may there not at that time of the election certain Rules be prescrib'd I do not say conditions for the better exercise of that Soveraign power and by the accepting the power thus explain'd doth not the Soveraign tho there should be no Oath administred for the observation thereof which is a circumstance admitted by most Monarchs tacitly covenant that he will observe those Rules and if he do's wilfully decline those Rules doth he not break the trust reposed in him I do not say forfeit the trust as if the Soveraignty were at an end but break that trust violate that justice he should observe If the Soveraign power of fifteen should raise an imposition for the defence of the Common-wealth if they should appoint this whole imposition to be paid only by those whose names are Thomas when Thomas was before in no more prejudice with the Common-wealth then any other appellation in Baptism may not this inequality be call'd a violation of Justice and a breach of trust since it cannot be suppos'd that such an irregular autority was ever committed to any man or men by any deputation Of the Prerogative of necessity to swerve from Rules prescrib'd or to violate Laws tho sworn to shall be spoken to in its due time It needs not be suppos'd but must be confess'd that the Laws of every Country contain more in them concerning the rights of the Soveraign and the common administration of Justice to the people then can be known to and understood by the person of the Soveraign and he can as well fight all his Battels with his own hand and sword as determine all causes of right by his own tongue and understanding The consequence of any confusion which Mr. Hobbes can suppose would not be more pernicious then that which would follow the blowing away all these maxims of the Law if the Kings breath were strong enough to do it It is a maxim in the Law as is said before that the eldest Son shall inherit and that if three or four Females are heirs the inheritance shall be equally divided between them Doth Mr. Hobbes believe that the word of the King hath power to change this course and to appoint that all the Sons shall divide the Estate and the Eldest Daughter inherit alone and must not all the confusion imaginable attend such a mutation All Governments subsist and are establish'd by firmness and constancy by every mans knowing what is his right to enjoy and what is his duty to do and it is a wonderful method to make this Government more perfect and more durable by introducing such an incertainty that no man shall know what he is to do nor what he is to suffer but that he who is Soveraign to morrow may cancel and dissolve all that was don or consented to by the Soveraign who was yesterday or by himself as often as he changes his mind It is the Kings Office to cause his Laws to be executed and to compel his Subjects to yield obedience to them and in order thereunto to make choice of Learned Judges to interpret those Laws and to declare the intention of them who pag. 140 by an artificial perfection of reason gotten by long study and experience in the Law must be understood to be more competent for that determination then Mr. Hobbes can be for the alteration of Law and Government by the artificial reason he hath attain'd to by long study of Arithmetic and Geometry No Eminent Lawyer hath ever said that the two Arms of a Common-wealth are Force and Justice the first whereof is in the King the other deposited in the hands of the Parliament but all Lawyers know that they are equally deposited in the hands of the King and that all justice is administred by him and in his name and all men acknowledg that all the Laws are his Laws his consent and autority only giving the power and name of a Law what concurrence or formality soever hath contributed towards it the question only is whether he can repeal or vacate such a Law without the same concurrence and formality And methinks the instance he makes of a Princes pag. 139. subduing another people and consenting that they shall live and be govern'd according to those Laws under which they were born and by which they were formerly govern'd should manifest to him the contrary For tho it be confess'd that those old Laws become new by this consent of his the Laws of the Legislator that is of that Soveraign who indulges the use of them yet he cannot say that he can by his word vacate and repeal those Laws and his own concession without dissolving all the ligaments of Government and without the violation of faith which himself confesses to be against the Law of Nature Notwithstanding that the Law is reason and pag. 139. not the letter but that which is according to the intention of the Legislator that is of the Soveraign is the Law yet when there is any difficulty in the understanding the Law the interpretation thereof may reasonably belong to Learn'd Judges who by their education and the testimony of their known abilities before they are made Judges and by their Oaths to judg according to Right are the most competent to explain those difficulties which no Soveraign as Soveraign can be presum'd to understand or comprehend And the judgments and decisions those Judges make are the judgments of the Soveraigns who have qualified them to be Judges and who are to pronounce their sentence according to the reason of the Law not the reason of the Soveraign And therefore Mr. Hobbes would make a very ignorant Judg when he would not have him versed in the study of the Laws but only a man of good natural reason and of a right understanding of the Law of Nature and yet he saies pag. 154. that
word countenance or gesture declare hatred or contemt of another If all men are bound by the Law of Nature pag. 78. That they that are at controversie submit their right to the judgment of an arbitrator as he saies they are If Nature hath thus providently provided for the Peace and Tranquillity of her Children by Laws immutable and eternal that are written in their hearts how come they to fall into that condition of war as to be every one against every one and to be without any other cardinal Virtues but of force and fraud It is a wonderful thing that a man should be so sharp-sighted as to discern mankind so well inclosed and fortified by the wisdom of Nature and so blind as to think him in a more secure estate by his transferring of right to another man which yet he confesses is impossible intirely to transfer and by Covenants and Contracts of his own devising and which he acknowledges to be void in part and in other parts impossibe to be perform'd But I say if in truth Nature hath dictated all those excellent Conclusions to every man without which they cannot be called the Laws of Nature and if it hath farther instituted all those duties which are contain'd in the Second Table all which he saies were the Laws of Nature I know not what temtation or autority he could have to pronounce mankind to be left by Nature in that distracted condition of war except he prefer the autority of Ovids Metamorphosis of the sowing of Cadmus's teeth before any other Scripture Divine or Humane And it is as strange that by his Covenants and Contracts which he is so wary in wording as if he were the Secretary of Nature that they may bind that man fast enough whom he pleases to assign to those Bonds and as if he were the Pleâ—potentiary of Nature too to bind and to loose all he thinks fit he hath so ill provided for the Peace he would establish that he hath left a door open for all the Confusion he would avoid when notwithstanding that he hath made them divest themselves of the liberty they have by Nature and transfer all this into the hands of a single Person who thereby is so absolute Soveraign that he may take their Lives and their Estates from them without any act of Injustice yet after all this transferring and divesting every man reserves a right as unalienable to defend his own life even against the sentence of Justice What greater contradiction can there be to the Peace which he would establish upon those unreasonable conditions then this Liberty which he saies can never be abandoned and which yet may dissolve that peace every day and yet he saies pag. 70. This is granted to be true by all men in that they lead Criminals to execution and prison with armed men notwithstanding such Criminals have consented to the Law by which they are condemned Which indeed in an Argument that men had rather escape then be hanged but no more an Argument that they have a right to rescue themselves then the fashion of wearing Sword is an argument that men are afraid of having their throats cuâ— by the malice of their neighbors both which are Arguments no man would urge to men whose understandings he did not much undervalue But upon many of these Particulars there is a more proper occasion hereafter for enlargement And so we pass through his Prospect of the Laws of Nature and many other Definitions and Descriptions with liberty to take review of them upon occasion that we may make hast to his Second Part for which he thinks he hath made a good preparation to impose upon us in this First and he will often tell us when he should prove what he affirms that he hath evinc'd that Point and made it evident in such a Chapter in his First Part where in truth he hath said very much and proved very little I shall only conclude this with an observation which the place seems to require of the defect in Mr. Hobbes's Logic which is a great presumtion that from very true Propositions he deduces very erroneous and absurd Conclusions That no man hath power to transfer the right over his own life to the disposal of another man is a very true Proposition from whence he infers that he hath reserved the power and disposal of it to himself and therefore that he may defend it by force even against the judgment of Law and Justice whereas the natural consequence of that Proposition is That therefore such transferring and covenanting being void cannot provide for the peace and security of a Common-wealth Without doubt no man is Dominus vitae suae and therefore cannot give that to another which he hath not in himself God only hath reserv'd that absolute Dominion and Power of life and death to himself and by his putting the Sword into the hand of the Supreme Magistrate hath qualified and enabled him to execute that justice which is necessary for the peace and preservation of his People which may seem in a manner to be provided for by Mr. Hobbes's Law of Nature if what he saies be true pag. 68. That right to the end containeth right to the means And this sole Proposition that men cannot dispose of their own lives hath bin alwaies held as a manifest and undeniable Argument that Soveraigns never had nor can have their Power from the People Second Part. The Survey of Chapters 17 18. MR. Hobbes having taken upon him to imitate God and created Man after his own likeness given him all the passions and affections which he finds in himself and no other he prescribes him to judg of all things and words according to the definitions he sets down with the Autority of a Creator After he hath delighted himself in a commendable method and very witty and pleasant description of the nature and humor of the World as far as he is acquainted with it upon many particulars whereof which he calls Definitions there will be frequent occasion of reflexions in this discourse without breaking the thred of it by entring upon impertinent exceptions to matters positively averred without any apparent reason when it is no great matter whether it be true or no He comes at last to institute such a Common-wealth as never was in nature or ever heard of from the beginning of the World till this structure of his and like a bountiful Creator gives the Man he hath made the Soveraign command and Government of it with such an extent of power and autority as the Great Turk hath not yet appear'd to affect In which it is probable he hath follow'd his first method and for the Man after his own likeness hath created a Government that he would himself like to be trusted with having determined Liberty and Propriety and Religion to be only emty words and to have no other existence then in the Will and Breast of his Soveraign Governor and all this in
we are bound by the rules of Justice founded upon our own consent to pretend neither to liberty or property other then our Governor thinks fit to indulge to us he must be contented not to be believed or must vouch-safe to tell us when and where that consent of ours was given and we submitted to those obligations and it will be no kind of answer of satisfaction to say magisterially that if it be not so it should be so for our good which we clearly find will turn to our irreparable dammage and destruction And it is a very confident thing that he should hope to support his Soveraign right in so unlimited an extent upon the Law of Nature because p. 176. that forbids the violation of Faith without being pressed to tell us when and where that Faith was given that is so obligatory and the violation whereof must be so penal But it is more prodigiously bold to confess upon the matter that there hath not hitherto bin any Common-wealth where those rights have bin acknowledged or challeng'd and to undervalue the Argument by making it as ridiculous as if the Savage People of America should deny there were any grounds or principles of reason so to build as their Architecture is not yet arrived at So he thinks that tho his Savage Country-men and Neighbors have yet only bin accustomed to Governments imperfect apt to relapse into disorders he hath found out principles by industrious meditation to make their constitution everlasting And truly he hath some reason to be confident of his Principles if tho they cannot be proved by reason he be sure they are Principles from autority of Scripture as he professes them to be and which must be examin'd in its course In the mean time he may be thought to be too indulgent to his Soveraign Governor and very neer to contradict himself that after he hath made the keeping and observation of promises to be a part of the Law of Nature which is unalterable and eternal and so the ground and foundation of that obedience which the Subject must render how tyrannically soever exacted yet all Covenants entred into by the Soveraign to be void and that to imagine that he is or can be bound to perform any promise or covenant proceeds only from want of understanding And it would be worth his pains to consider whether the assigning such a power to his Governor or the absolving him from all Covenants and promises be a rational way to establish such a Peace as is the end of Government and since he confesses the justest Government may be overthrown by force it ought prudently to be considered what is like to prevent that force as well as what the subject is bound to consent to and whether the people may not be very naturally dispos'd to use that force against him that declares himself to be absolv'd from all Oaths Covenants and Promises and whether any obligation of reason or justice can establish the Government in him who founds it upon so unrighteous a determination If Mr. Hobbes did not affect to be of the humor of those unreasonable Gamesters which he saies pag. 19. is intolerable in the society of men who will after trump is turned use for trump upon every occasion that suit whereof they have most in their hand whom he likens to those men who clamor and demand right reason for Judg yet seek no more but that things should be determined by no other mens reason then their own I say if Mr. Hobbes were not possessed by his supercilious spirit which he condemns since this his Institution of Soveraignty is a mere imagination he might with as much reason if he would have bin pleased to have called it so because it would have carried with it more equality and consequently more security have supposed a Covenant to be on the Soveraigns part which that he may not do he will not admit that they who are his Subjects make any Covenant with their Soveraign to obey him which if he did he could as well covenant again with them to govern righteously without making them the Judges of his justice or himself liable to their controul and jurisdiction So that the Soveraign hath no security for the obedience of his People but the promise they have made to each other and consequently if they rebel against him he cannot complain of any injustice don to him because they have broke no promise they made to him And truly by his own Logic they may release to one another when they think it convenient whereas if the promises be mutual I do not say conditional the Soveraign must not be at the mercy of his Subjects but as they put themselves under his power so he promises them not to use that power wantonly or tyrannically which will be a proper and significant word against all his interpretation by which they have as much obligation upon him to be just as he hath upon them to be obedient which is no other then that they swarve from justice if they withdraw their obedience from him This had bin a more natural and equitable Institution and more like to have lasted having in it the true essential form of contracts in which it will never be found that one party covenants and the other not which is the reason Mr. Hobbes himself gives why no Covenant can be made with God and that pag. 89. the pretence of Covenant with God is so evident a lye even in the pretenders own consciences that it is not only â—n act of an unjust but also of a vile and unmanly disposition which assertion is destructive of our Religion and against the express sense of Scripture The impossibility alledg'd for such a Covenant because it could not be don before he was Soveraign for that the Subjects who submit to him were not yet one person and after he is Soveraign what he doth is void is but a fancy of words which have no solid signification Nor is the instance which he gives of the popular Government by which he would make the imagination of such a Covenant ridiculous of any importance for he saies pag. 90. No man is so dull as to say that the People of Rome made a Covenant with the Romans to hold the Soveraignâ—y on such or such conditions which not perform'd the Romans might lawfully depose the Roman People which is according to his usual practice to put an objection into the mouth of a foolish Adversary to make his Readers merry And yet he laies so much weight upon it that he saies it is only over inclination to a popular Government that men do not see that there is the same reason with reference to Monarchy And so there is and the reason good to either For doth not every man know that knows any thing of the Government of Rome that when the Soveraignty was intirely vested in the Senate and had long bin so the People of Rome made a great alteration in
injury the contrary whereof he saies he hath shewed already for he takes it as granted that all that he hath said he had proved and if he hath not he hath don it now substantially by the example of Iepthah in causing his daughter to be sacrific'd of which he is not sure and by Davids killing Vriah which he saies tho it was against equity yet it was not an injury to Vriah because the right was given him by Vriah which I dare swear Vriah never knew he had don And by such unnatural Arguments he would perswade men to be willing to be undon very like those which the Stoics as obstinately maintain'd That a wise man could not be injur'd because he was not capable nor sensible of it But I wonder more that he doth not discern what every other man cannot but discern that by his so liberal taking away he hath not left the Subject any thing to enjoy even of those narrow concessions which he hath made to him For how can any man believe that he hath liberty to buy and sell when the Soveraign power can presently take away what he hath sold from him who hath bought it and consequently no man can sell or buy to any purpose Who can say that he can chuse his own abode or his own trade of life or any thing when assoon as he hath chosen either he shall be requir'd to go to a place where he hath no mind to go and to do somwhat he would not chuse to do for his person is no more at his own disposal then his goods are so that he may as graciously retain to himself all that he hath granted Whether the Soveraign Power or the Liberty of the Subject receive the greater injury and prejudice by this brief state and description he makes of the no liberty that is the portion he leaves to the Subject would be a great question if he had not bin pleas'd himself to determine that his Subject for God forbid that any other Prince should have such a Subject is not capable of an injury by which the whole mischief is like to fall upon the Soveraign And what greater mischief and ruine can threaten the greatest Prince then that their Subjects should believe that all the liberty they have consists only in those things which the Soveraign hath hitherto pretermitted that is which he hath not yet taken from them but when he pleases in regulating their actions to determine the contrary they shall then have neither liberty to buy or sell nor to contract with each other to chuse their own abode their own diet their own trade of life or to breed their own children and to make their misery compleat and their life as little their own as the rest that nothing the Soveraign can do to his Subject on what pretence soever as well in order to the taking away his Life as his Estate can be called injustice or injury I say what greater insecurity can any Prince be in or under then to depend upon such Subjects And alas what security to himself or them can the Sword in his hand be if no other hand be lift up on his behalf or the Swords in all other hands be directed against him that he may not cut off their heads when he hath a mind to it and it is not Mr. Hobbes's autority that will make it believ'd that he who desires more liberty demands an exemtion from all Laws by which all other men may be masters of their lives and that every Subject is author of every act the Soveraign doth upon the extravagant supposition of a consent that never was given and if it were possible to have bin given must have bin void at the instant it was given by Mr. Hobbes's own rules as shall be made out in its place He himself confesses pag. 295. and saies it is evident to the meanest capacities that mens actions are deriv'd from the opinion they have of the good and evil which from those actions redound unto themselves and consequently men that are once possessed of an opinion that their obedience to the Soveraign power will be more hurtful to them then their disobedience will disobey the Laws and thereby over-throw the Common-wealth and introduce confusion and civil War for the avoiding whereof all civil Government was ordained If this be true as there is no reason to believe it to be is it possible that any man can believe that the People for we speak not of convincing the Philosophers and the Mathematicians but of the general affections of the People which must dispose them to obedience that they can be perswaded by a long train of Consesequences from the nature of man and the end of Government and the institution thereof by Contracts and Covenants of which they never heard to believe that it is best for them to continue in the same nakedness in which they were created for fear their clothes may be stoln from them and that they have parted with their liberty to save their lives There is no question but of all calamities the calamity of War is greatest and the rage and uncharitableness of civil War most formidable of all War Indeed foreign War seldom destroies a Nation without domestic Combinations and Conspiracies which makes a complication with civil War and sure nothing can more inevitably produce that then an universal opinion in the People that their Soveraign can take from them all they have whenever he hath a mind to it and their lives to without any injustice and consequently that their obedience to him will be more hurtful to them then their disobedience so well hath he provided for the security of his Soveraign if his doctrine were believ'd Mr. Hobbes is too much conversant in both those learned Languages to wish that the Western World were depriv'd of the Greek and Latine Tongues for any mischief they have don and upon my conscience what ever errors may have bin brought into Philosophy by the autority of Aristotle no man ever grew a Rebel by reading him and if the greatest Monarch that hath ever bin in the World except the Monarch of the World had thought his Tutor Aristotle had bin so great an enemy to Monarchy yet he knew he was born and bred in a Republic and that his Works contribute so much to sedition as Mr. Hobbes supposes he would not have valued his Person so much nor read his Works with such diligence as he did And if Mr. Hobbes would take a view of the Insurrections and the civil Wars which have at any time bin stirr'd up in the Western parts he will not find that they have bin contriv'd or fomented by men who had spent much time in the reading Greek and Latin Authors or that they have bin carried on upon the Maxims and Principles which they found there Iack Straw and Wat Tyler whose Insurrection in respect of the numbers and the progress it made was as dangerous as hath happened in
upon a true account as this paction is the more or less exactly observ'd and compli'd with Mr. Hobbes is much mistaken in his Historical conclusions as for the most part he uses to be when he saies pag. 129. that the Conqueror and his Successors have alwaies laid arbitrary Taxes on all Subjests Lands except he calls what hath bin don by the free consent of the Subject which is according to the paction to be the arbitrary Tax of the Soveraign because the Law is the stamp of his own Royal Autority And if such arbitrary Taxes have in truth at any time bin laid upon the Subjects he might have observ'd for somtimes it hath bin don that the Soveraign hath receiv'd much more dammage then profit by it and the Kingdom bin in a worse state of security then it was before Nor can any Argument be made from the glory and prosperity of some Crowns which have somtimes exercis'd that arbitrary Power and reduc'd the Rules they ought to govern by to the standard of their own Will which yet they have don with such formality as implies the consent of their Subjects tho they dare not but consent It hath bin too frequently seen too that the hurt and wounded patience of the People hath when it may be it was least apprehended redeem'd themselves for lâ—sa patientia est furor by as unwarrantable Rebellion from unwarrantable Oppression or out of contemt of their own ruin because they have so little comfort in their preservation have obstinately refused to give any assistance to their Soveraign when he hath real need of it because he hath wantonly extorted it from them when he had no need And then men pay too dear for their want of providence and find too late that the neglect of Justice is an infallible underminer how undiscern'd soever of that security which their Policy would raise for themselves in the place of that which Wisdom and Justice had provided for them I agree that it being impossible to fore-see what the expences which a Soveraign may be put to will amount to it is as impossible by land or otherwise to set aside such a proportion as is necessary but those extraordinary occasions must be supplied by such extraordinary waies and with those formalities which the Soveraign obliges himself to observe by observing whereof much less inconvenience shall befall Him or the Public then by cancelling those Laws which establish Propriety If Mr. Hobbes had not bin a professed Enemy to Greek and Latine Sentences as an Argument of indisgestion when they come up again unchewed and unchanged he might have learn'd from Seneca who understood and felt the utmost extent of an absolute Soveraignty and had a shrewd fore-sight what the end of it would be how the propriety of the Subject might well consist with the power of the Prince Iure civili saies he omnia Regis sunt tamen illa quoâ—um ad Regem pertinet universap ssâ—ssio in singulos dâ—minos descripta sunt unâ—quaeque res habet possessorem suum Itaque dare Regi domum mancipium pecuniam possumus nâ—c dâ—nore illi de suo dicimur Ad Reges enim potestas omnium pertin tâ—ad singulos proprietas And that Prince who thinks his power so great that his Subjects have nothing to give him will be very unhappy if he hath ever need of their hands or their hearts The Survey of Chapter 25. WHen Mr. Hobbes hath erected such a Soveraign and instituted such a People that the one may say and do whatsoever he finds convenient for his purpose and the other must neiâ—her say or do any thing that may displease him the consideration of what and how counsel should be given under such a Government can require very little deliberation And the truth is the discourse of this Chapter with the differences between Command and Counsel is more vulgar and pedantic then he is usually guilty of and it is easie to be observ'd that in his description of the office of a Counsellor and of the ability of câ—unselling pag. 134. that it proceeds from experience and long study and that it requires great knowledg of the disposition of man-kind of the rights of Government and of the nature of Equity Law Iustice and Honor not to be attain'd without study and of the strengths commodities places boâ—k of their own Country and their Neighbors as also of the inclinations and designs of all Nations that may any way annoy them and this he saies is not attained without much Experience he makes so lively a representation of that universal understanding which he would be thought to be possessed with that he could not be without hope that Câ—omwell would think him worthy to be a Counsellor who had given him such an earnest that he would serve him with success and without hesitation Yet I see no reason if to ask Counsel of another is to permit him to give such Counsel as he shall think best and if it be the Office of a Counsellor when an Action comes into deliberation to make manifest the consequence of it in such a manner as he that is counselled may be truly and evidently inform'd why he is so very angry with those two words exhort and dehort as to brand those who use either with the style of corruption and being brib'd by their own interest since it is very agreeable to the faith and integrity of a Counsellor to perswade him that asks his advice to do that which he thinks best to be don and to disswade him from doing that which he thinks to be mischievous which is to exhort and dehort and the examples of Persons and the autority of Books may be pertinently applied to either since few accidents fall out in States and Empires which have not in former times happened in such conjunctures and then if the same hath bin faithfully represented to posterity with all the circumstance and successes which is the natural end of all good Histories to transmit nothing can more properly be reflected on or bring clearer light to the present difficulties in debate then the memory of what was upon those occasions don fortunatly or unhappily left undon which surely cannot but introduce useful and pertinent Reflexions into the consultation And it is not easie to comprehend what that great ability is which his Counsellor is to attain to by long study and cannot be attain'd without if that study be not to be conversant with Books and if neither the examples in or autority of Books be in any degree to be consider'd Nor are such expressions which may move the affections or passions of him who asks Counsel or of those who are to give it repugnant to the office of a Counsellor since the end of Counsel is to lead men to chuse that which is good and avoid that which is worse and he to whom the Counsel is given will best judg whether it tends to others ends rather then his
Principles against Law least he be obliged to stand or fall according to the rectitude or error thereof Tho every Instance he gives of his Soveraigns absolute power makes it the more unreasonable formidable and odious yet he gives all the support to it he can devise And indeed when he hath made his Soveraigns word a full and enacted Law he hath reason to oblige his Subject to do whatsoever he commands be it right or wrong and to provide for his security when he hath don and therefore he declares pag. 157. That whosoever doth any thing that is contrary to a former Law by the command of his Soveraign he is not guilty of any crime and so cannot be punished because when the Soveraign commands any thing to be don against a former Law the command as to that particular Fact is an abrogation of the Law which would introduce a licence to commit Murder or any other crime most odious and against which Laws are chiefly provided But he hath in another place given his Subject leave to refuse the Soveraigns command when he requires him to do an act or office contrary to his honor so that tho he will not suffer the Law to restrain him from doing what the Soveraign unlawfully commands yea his honor of which he shall be Judg himself may make him refuse that command tho lawfâ—l as if the Soveraign commands him to Prison as no doubt he lawfully may for a crime that deserves death he may in Mr. Hobbes's opinion refuse to obey that command Whereas Government and Justice have not a greater security then that he that executes a verbal command of the King against a known Law shall be punished And the Case which he puts in the following Paragraph that the Kings Will being a Law if he should not obey that there would appear two contradictory Laws which would totally excuse is so contrary to the common Rule of Justice that a man is obliged to believe when the King requires any thing to be don contrary to any Law that he did not know of that Law and so to forbear executing his Command And if this were otherwise Kings of all men would be most miserable and would reverse their most serious Counsels and Deliberations by incogitancy upon the suggestion and importunity of every presumtuous Intruder Kings themselves can never be punished or reprehended publicly that being a reproch not consistent with the reverence due to Majesty for their casual or wilful errors and mistakes let the ill consequence of them be what they will but if they who maliciously lead or advise or obey them in unjust resolutions and commands were to have the same indemnity there must be a dissolution of all Kingdoms and Governments But as Kings must be left to God whose Vice-gerents they are to judg of their breach of Trust so they who offend against the Law must be left to the punishment the Law hath provided for them it being in the Kings power to pardon the execution of the Sentence the Law inflicts except in those cases where the Offence is greater to others then to the King as in the murder of a Husband or a Father the offence is greater to the Wife and to the Son for their relation then to the King for a Subject and therefore upon an Appeal by them the Transgressor may suffer after the King hath pardon'd him It is a great prerogative which Mr. Hobbes doth in this Chapter indulge to his fear his precious bodily fear of corporal hurt that it shall not only extenuate an ill action but totally excuse and annihilate the worst he can commit that if a man by the terror of present death be compelled to do a Fact against the Law he is wholly excused because no Law can oblige a man to abandon his own preservation and supposing such a Law were obligatory yet a man would reason pag. 157. If I do it not I die presently if I do it I die afterwards therefore by doing it there is time of life gain'd Nature therefore compels him to the Fact by which a man seems by the Law of Nature to be compell'd even for a short reprieve and to live two or three daies longer to do the most infamous and wicked thing that is imaginable upon which fertile soil he doth hereafter so much enlarge according to his natural method in which he usually plants a stock supposes a principle the malignity whereof is not presently discernable in a precedent Chapter upon which in a subsequent one he grafts new and worse Doctrine which he looks should grow and prosper by such cultivation as he applies to it in Discourse and therefore I shall defer my Considerations to the contrary till I wait upon him in that enlarged disquisition The Survey of Chapter 28. THe eight and twentieth Chapter being a Discourse of Punishments and Rewards it was not possible for him to forget in how weak a condition he had left his Soveraign for want of power to punish since want of power to punish and want of autority to cause his punishment to be inflicted is the same thing especially when the guilty person is not only not oblig'd to submit to the Sentence how just soever but hath a right to resist it and to defend himself by force against the Magistrate and the Law and therefore he thinks it of much importance to enquire by what door the right and autority of punishing in any case came in He is a very ill Architect that in building a House makes not doors to enter into every office of it and it is very strange that he should make his doors large and big enough in his institution to let out all the liberty and propriety of the Subject and the very end of his Institution being to make a Magistrate to compel men to their duty for he confesses they were before obliged by the Law of Nature to perform it one towards another but that there must be a Soveraign Sword to compel men to do that which they ought to do yet that he should forget to leave a door wide enough for this compulsion to enter in at by punishment and bringing the Offender to Justice since the end of making the Soveraign is disappointed and he cannot preserve the peace if guilty persons have a right to preserve themselves from the punishment he inflicts for their guilt It was very improvidently don when he had the draught of the whole Contracts and Covenants that he would not insert one by which every man should transfer from himself the right he had to defend himself against public Justice tho not against private violence And surely reason and Self-preservation that makes a man transfer all his Estate and Interest into the hands of the Soveraign and to be disposed by him that he may be secure against the robbery and rapine of his neighbors companions will as well dispose him to leave his life to his discretion that it may be
secure from the assault of every other man who hath a right to take it from him But he thinks life too pretious to part with willingly and therefore cares for no more then to invest his Soveraign with a just title to punish how unable soever he leaves him to execute it And truly his fancy is very extraordinary in bringing it to pass He will not suffer his power to punish to be grounded upon the concession or gift of the Subjects from which fountain all his other extravagant powers flow which are as unnatural for them to give but saies it was originally inherent in him by the right of Nature by which every man might subdue or kill another man as he thought best for his own preservation which right still remain'd in him when all other men transferred all their rights to him because he never contracted with them to part with any thing and so he comes pag. 162. to a right to punish whiâ—h was not given but left to him and to him only as entire as in the condition of mere nature Is not this mere fancy without any reason which he needed not have exercis'd to so little purpose to erect a lawful Power which any man may lawfully resist and oppose Nor is the right much greater that is left him then what it seems is tacitly reserv'd to every man who notwithstanding all transferring hath still right to resist the Sword of Justice in his own defence and for ought appears to kill him that carries it So that in truth his Soveraign is vested in no other autority then lawfully to fight so many Duels as the Law hath condemned men to suffer death since he can command none of his Subjects to execute them and they have all lawful power to defend their own lives How this right and autority of punishing came into the hands of the Soveraign we shall not follow his example in repeting having before confessed that it neither is nor can be grounded on any concession or gift of the Subject but is indubitably inherent in the office of being Soveraign and inseparably annexed to it by God himself Corporal or Capital punishment Ignominy Imprisonment or Exile are not better understood then they were before his Definitions and Descriptions which he makes of them and in which he doth not so much consider the nature of a Definition as that he may insert somwhat into it to which he may resort to prove somwhat which men do not think of when they read those Definitions and assuming to himself to declare what will serve his turn to be the Law of Nature or the Law of Nations he makes such Inferences and Consequences as he thinks necessary to prove his desperate Conclusions There cannot be a more pernicious Doctrine and more destructive to Peace and Justice then that all men who are not Subjects are enemies that against enemies whom the Common-wealth judges capable to do them hurt it is lawful by the original right of Nature to make War which would keep up a continual War between all Princes since they are few who are not capable to do hurt to their Neighbors Nor can this mischief be prevented by any Treaty or League for whil'st they are capable of doing hurt the lawfulness still remains and being the original right of Nature cannot be extinguished But the wisest and most Learned who have wrote of the Law of Nature and of Nations abominate this Proposition and the incomparable Grotius saies De Iure B. P. lib. 2. cap. 1. part 17. Illud minime ferendum est quod quidam tradiderunt jure gentium arma recte sumi ad imminuendam potentiam crescentem quae nimium aucta nocere potest It may be a motive when there is other just cause in prudence towards the War but that it gives a title in Justice ab omni aequitatis ratione abhorret And he saies in another place cap. 22. part 5. that it must constare non tantum de potentia sed de animo quidem ita constare ut certum id sit ea certudine quae in morali materia locum habet And yet from this erroneous Proposition and because in pag. 165. War the Sword judgeth not nor doth the victor make distinction of nocent and innocent nor hath other respect of mercy then as it conduceth to the good of his own People he makes no scruple to tell Cromwell That as to those who deliberately deny his Autority for the Autority of the Common-wealth established could have no other signification the vengeance is lawfully extended not only to the Fathers but also to thâ— third and fourth generations not yet in being and consequently innocent of the fact for which they are afflicted because they that so offend suffer not as Subjects but as Enemies towards whom the Victor may proceed as he thinks fit and best for himself After the giving which advice it was a marvellous confidence that introduc'd him into the Kings presence and encourag'd him still to expect that his Doctrine should be allow'd to be industriously taught and believed If Mr. Hobbes were condemn'd to depart out of the dominion of the Common-wealth as many men believe he might with great Justice be and so become an exil'd person he would be a more competent Judg to determine whether Banishment be a punishment or rather an escape or a public command to avoid punishment by flight and he would probably then be of opinion that the mere change of air is a very great punishment And if he remembers his own Definition pag. 108. That a free man is he that in those things which by his strength and wit he is able to do is not hindred to do what he hath a will to he would believe that the taking that freedom from him and the restraining that liberty is a very severe punishment whether justly or unjustly inflicted and is in no degree mitigated by his declaring pag. 165. that a banish'd man is a lawful enemy of the Common wealth that banished him as being no more a member of the same and then he may be lawfully prosecuted as well in and after he hath undergon the punishment of Banishment as he was before but the duty that a banish'd Person still ow's to his Country and to the Soveraign of it is set down before But the truth is he hath very powerfully extinguish'd all those differences and priviledges which all Writers of the Ius gentium have carefully preserv'd between a just and unjâ—st War between lawful Enemies and the worst Rebels and Traitors and hath put the last into a better condition then the former by making them liable only to those pains and forfeiture which the Law hath literally provided for them and which in some cases preserves their Estates for their Families whereas the lawful Enemy even after quarter given remains at the mercy of the Victor who may take his life and inflict any other punishment upon him arbitrarily and