's garment upon one of the king's horses with a crown on his head and a prince before him proclaiming thus shall it be done to him that the king will honour. And yet another king of Persia or the same another time to one that demanded for some great service to wear one of the king's robes gave him leave so to do, but with this addition that he should wear it as the king's fool and then it was dishonour. So that of civil honour the fountain is in the person of the commonwealth and dependeth on the will of the sovereign and is therefore temporary and called civil honour such as our magistracy, offices, titles and in some places coats and scutians painted and men honour such as have them as having so many signs of favour in the commonwealth which favour is power. Honourable is whatsoever possession, action or quality is an argument and sign of power and therefore to be honoured, loved or feared of many is honourable as arguments of power to be honoured of few or none dishonourable. Dominion and victory is honourable because acquired by power and servitude for need or fear is dishonourable. Good fortune if lasting honourable as a sign of the favour of God, ill and lost is dishonourable. Riches are honourable for they are power. Poverty dishonourable, magnanimity, liberality, hope, courage, confidence are honourable for they proceed from the conscience of power. Pucillanimity, parsimony, fear, diffidence are dishonourable.  For when a man has weighed things as long as the time permits and resolves not, the difference of weight is but little and therefore if he resolves not, he overvalues little things which is pucillanimity. All actions and speeches that proceed or seem to proceed from much experience, science, discretion or wit are honourable for all these are powers. Actions or words that proceed from error, ignorance or folly, dishonourable. Gravity as far forth as it seems to proceed from a mind employed on something else is honourable because employment is a sign of power but if it seemed to proceed from a purpose to appear grave it is dishonourable. For the gravity of the former is like the steadiness of a ship laden with merchandise but of the latter like the steadiness of a ship ballasted with sand and other trash. To be conspicuous that is to say to be known for wealth, office, great actions or any eminent good is honourable as a sign of the power for which he is conspicuous. On the contrary obscurity is dishonourable. To be descended from conspicuous parents is honourable because they the more easily attain the aids and friends of their ancestors. On the contrary to be descended from obscure parentage is dishonourable. Actions proceeding from equity joined with loss are honourable as signs of magnanimity for magnanimity is a sign of power. On the contrary, craft, shifting, neglect of equity is dishonourable. Covetousness of great riches and ambition of great honours are honourable as signs of power to obtain them. Covetousness and ambition of little gains or preferments is dishonourable. Nor does it alter the case of honour whether an action, so it be great and difficult and consequently a sign of much power be just or unjust for honour consisteth only in the opinion of power. Therefore the ancient heathen did not think they dishonoured but greatly honoured the gods when they introduced them in their poems committing rapes, thefts and other great but unjust or unclean acts. In so much as nothing is so much celebrated in Jupiter as his adulteries nor in Mercury as his frauds and thefts of whose praises in a hymn of Homer the greatest is this that being born in the morning he had invented music at noon and before night stolen away the cattle of Apollo from his herdsmen. Also amongst men till they were constituted great commonwealths it was thought no dishonour to be a pirate or a highway thief but rather a lawful trade not only amongst the Greeks but also amongst all other nations as is manifest by the histories of ancient time. And at this day in this part of the world private duels are and always will be honourable though unlawful till such time as there shall be honour ordained for them that refuse and ignominy for them that make the challenge. For duels also are many times effects of courage and the ground of courage is always strength or skill which are power though for the most part they be effects of rash speaking and of the fear of dishonour in one or both combatants who engaged by rashness are driven into the lists to avoid disgrace. Scuttions and coats of arms hereditary where they have any eminent privileges are honourable otherwise not for their power consisteth either in such privileges or in riches or some such thing as is equally honoured in other men. This kind of honour commonly called gentry has been derived from the ancient Germans for there never was any such thing known where the German customs were unknown nor is it now anywhere in use where the Germans have not inhabited. The ancient Greek commanders when they went to war had their shields painted with such devices as they pleased in so much as an unpainted buckler was a sign of poverty and of a common soldier but they transmitted not the inheritance of them. The Romans transmitted the marks of their families but they were the images not the devices of their ancestors. Amongst the people of Asia, Africa and America there is not nor was ever any such thing. Germans only had that custom from whom it has been derived into England, France, Spain and Italy when in great numbers they either aided the Romans or made their own conquests in these western parts of the world. For Germany, being anciently as all other countries in their beginnings divided amongst an infinite number of little lords or masters of families that continually had wars one with another those masters or lords principally to the end they might when they were covered with arms be known by their followers and partly for ornament both painted their armour or this guccian or coat with a picture of some beast or other thing and also put some eminent and visible mark upon the crest of their helmets and this ornament both of the arms and crest descended by inheritance to their children to the eldest pure and to the rest with some note of diversity such as the old master that is to say in Dutch the heli out thought fit but when many such families joined together made a greater monarchy this duty of the herald to distinguish scutians was made a private office apart and the issue of these lords is the great and ancient gentry which for the most part bare living creatures noted for courage and rapine or castles, battlements, belts weapons, bars, palisades and other notes of war nothing being then in honour but virtue and military afterwards not only kings but popular commonwealths gave diverse manners of scutians to such as went forth to the war or returned from it for encouragement or recompense to their service all which by an observing reader may be found in such ancient histories Greek and Latin as make mention of the German nation and manners in their times Titles of honour such as our Duke Count, Marquis and Baron are honourable as signifying the value set upon them by the sovereign power of the commonwealth which titles were in old time titles of office and command derived some from the Romans some from the Germans and French Dukes in Latin duques being generals in war Counts, Comites such as bore the general company out of friendship and were left to govern and defend places conquered and pacified Marquises, Marchenès were counts that governed the marches or bounds of the empire which titles of Duke, Count and Marquis came into the empire about the time of Constantine the Great from the customs of the German militia but Baron seems to have been a title of the Gauls and signifies a great man such as were the kings or princes men whom they employed in war about their persons and seems to be derived from Via to bear and bar that signified the same in the language of the Gauls that Via in Latin and thence to Bero and Baro so that such men were called Barones and after Barones and in Spanish Barones but he that would know more particularly the original of titles of honour may find it as I have done this in Mr Seldon's most excellent treatise of that subject in process of time these offices of honour by occasion of trouble and for reasons of good and peaceable government were turned into mere titles serving for the most part to distinguish the precedents, place and order of subjects in the commonwealth and men were made dukes, counts, marquises and barons of places wherein they had neither possession nor command and other titles also were devised to the same end worthiness is a thing different from the worth or value of a man and also from his merit or dessert and consisteth in a particular power or ability for that whereof he is said to be worthy which particular ability is usually named fitness or aptitude for he is worthiest to be a commander, to be a judge or to have any other charge that is best fitted with the qualities required to the well discharging of it and worthiest of riches that has the qualities most requisite for the well-using of them any of which qualities being absent one may nevertheless be a worthy man and valuable for something else again a man may be worthy of riches, office and employment that nevertheless can plead no right to have it before another and therefore cannot be said to merit or deserve it for merit presupposeeth a right and that the thing deserved is due by promise of which I shall say more hereafter when I shall speak of contracts end of chapter 10 chapter 11 of Leviathan this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for further information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes chapter 11 of the difference of manners by manners I mean not here decency of behavior as how one man should salute another or how a man should wash his mouth or pick his teeth before company and such other points of the small morals but those qualities of mankind that concern their living together in peace and unity to which end we are to consider that the felicity of this life consists if not in the repose of a mind satisfied for there is no such finis ultimus utmost aim nor sumum bonum greatest good as is spoken of in the books of the old moral philosophers nor can a man any more live whose desires are at an end than he whose senses and imaginations are at a stand felicity is a continual progress of the desire from one object to another the attaining of the former being still but the way to the latter the cause were of is that the object of man's desire is not to enjoy once only and for one incident of time but to assure forever the way of his future desire and therefore the voluntary actions and inclinations of all men tend not only to the procuring but also to the assuring of a contented life and differ only in the way which arises partly from the diversity of passions in diverse men and partly from the difference of the knowledge or opinion each one has of the causes which produce the effect desired so that in the first place I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of power after power that sees if only in death and the cause of this is not always that a man hopes for a more intensive delight than he has already attained to or that he cannot be content with a moderate power but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well which he hath present without the acquisition of more and from hence it is that kings whose power is greatest turn their endeavors to the assuring it at home by laws or abroad by wars and when that is done there succeeded the new desire in some of fame from new conquest in others of ease and sensual pleasure in others of admiration or being flattered for excellence in some art or other ability of the mind competition of riches, honor, command or other power inclineth to contention, enmity and war because the way of one competitor to the attaining of his desire is to kill, subdue, supplant or repel the other particularly competition of praise inclineth to a reverence of antiquity for men contend with the living not with the dead to these ascribing more than due that they may obscure the glory of the other desire of ease and sensual delight disposed if men to obey a common power because by such desires a man doth abandon the protection that might be hoped for from his own industry and labour fear of death and wounds disposed if for the same and for the same reason on the contrary needy men and hardy not contented with their present condition as also all men that are ambitious of military command are inclined to continue the causes of war and to stir up trouble and sedition for there is no honor military but by war nor any such hope to mend an ill game as by causing a new shuffle desire of knowledge and arts of peace inclineth men to obey a common power for such desire containeth a desire of leisure and consequently protection from some other power than their own desire of praise disposed if to laudable actions such as please them whose judgment they value for of those men whom we condemn we condemn also the praises desire of fame after death does the same and though after death there be no sense of the praise given us on earth as being joys that are either swallowed up in the unspeakable joys of heaven or extinguished in the extreme torments of hell yet is not such fame vain because men have a present delight therein from the foresight of it and of the benefit that may redound there by to their posterity which though they now see not yet they imagine and anything that is pleasure in the sense the same also is pleasure in the imagination to have received from one to whom we think ourselves equal greater benefits than there is hope to requite disposed to counterfeit love but really secret hatred and puts a man into the state of a desperate debtor that in declining the sight of his creditor tacitly wishes him there where he might never see him more for benefits oblige and obligation is thralldom and unrequitable obligation perpetual thralldom which is to one's equal hateful but to have received benefits from one whom we acknowledge for superior inclines to love because the obligation is no new depression and cheerful acceptation which men call gratitude is such an honor done to the oblige as he's taken generally for retribution also to receive benefits though from an equal or inferior as long as there is hope of requital disposed to love for in the intention of the receiver the obligation is of aid and service mutual from whence preceded an emulation of who shall exceed in benefiting the most noble and profitable contention possible wherein the victor is pleased with his victory and the other revenge by confessing it to have done more hurt to a man than he can or is willing to expiate inclineth the doer to hate the sufferer for he must expect revenge or forgiveness both which are hateful fear of oppression disposeth a man to anticipate or to seek aid by society for there is no other way by which a man can secure his life and liberty men that distrust their own subtlety are in tumult and sedition better disposed for victory than they that suppose themselves wise or crafty for these love to consult the other fearing to be circumvented to strike first and in sedition men being always in the precincts of battle to hold together and use all advantages of force is a better stratagem than any that can proceed from subtlety of wit feign glorious men such as without being conscious to themselves of great sufficiency delight in supposing themselves gallant men are inclined only to ostentation but not to attempt because when danger or difficulty appears they look for nothing but to have their insufficiency discovered feign glorious men such as estimate their sufficiency by the flattery of other men or the fortune of some precedent action without a short ground of hope from the true knowledge of themselves are inclined to rash engaging and in the approach of danger or difficulty to retire if they can because not seeing the way of safety they will rather hazard their honor which may be solved with an excuse than their lives for which no self is sufficient men that have a strong opinion of their own wisdom in matter of government are disposed to ambition because without public employment in council or majesty the honor of their wisdom is lost and therefore eloquent speakers are inclined to ambition for eloquence see myth wisdom both to themselves and others pusillanimity disposes if men to irresolution and consequently to lose the occasions and fittest opportunities of action for after men have been in deliberation till the time of action approach if it be not then manifest what is best to be done it is a sign the difference of motives the one way and the other are not great therefore not to resolve then is to lose the occasion by weighing of trifles which is pusillanimity frugality though in poor men of virtue make it a man unact to achieve such actions as require the strength of many men at once for it weaken if their endeavor which is to be nourished and kept in vigor by reward eloquence with flattery disposes if men to confide in them that have it because the former is seeming wisdom the latter seeming kindness add to them military reputation and it disposes if men to adhere and subject themselves to those men that have them the two former having given them caution against danger from him the latter gives them caution against danger from others want of science that is ignorance of causes disposes if or rather constrain it a man to rely on the advice and authority of others for all men whom the truth concerns if they rely not on their own must rely on the opinion of some other whom they think wiser than themselves and see not why he should deceive them ignorance of the signification of words is want of understanding disposes if men to take on trust not only the truth they know not but also the errors and which is more the nonsense of them they trust for neither error nor nonsense can without a perfect understanding of words be detected from the same it precedes that men give different names to one and the same thing from the difference of their own passions as they that approve a private opinion call it opinion but they that mislike it heresy and yet heresy signifies no more than private opinion but has only a greater tincture of color from the same also it preceded that men cannot distinguish without study and great understanding between one action of many men and many actions of one multitude as for example between the one action of all the senators of Rome in killing catiline and the many actions of a number of senators in killing Caesar and therefore are disposed to take for the action of the people that which is a multitude of actions done by a multitude of men led perhaps by the persuasion of one ignorance of the causes and original constitution of right equity law and justice disposes the man to make custom an example the rule of his actions in such manner as to think that unjust which it had been the custom to punish and that just of the impunity and approbation whereof they can produce an example or as the lawyers which only use this false measure of justice barbarously call it a precedent like little children that have no other rule of good and evil manners but the correction they received from their parents and masters say that children are constant to their rule whereas men are not so because grown strong and stubborn they appeal from custom to reason and from reason to custom as it serves their turn receding from custom when their interest requires it and setting themselves against reason as oft as reason is against them which is the cause that the doctrine of right and wrong is perpetually disputed both by the pen and the sword whereas the doctrine of lines and figures is not so because men care not in that subject what be truth as a thing that crosses no man's ambition profit or lust for I doubt not but if it had been a thing contrary to any man's right of dominion or to the interest of men that have dominion that the three angles of a triangle should be equal to two angles of a square that doctrine should have been if not disputed yet by the burning of all books of geometry suppressed as far as he whom it concerned was able ignorance of remote causes disposes men to attribute all events to the causes immediate and instrumental for these are all the causes they perceive and hence it comes to pass that in all places men that are grieved with payments to the public discharge their anger upon the publicans that is to say farmers collectors and other officers of the public revenue and adhere to such as find fault with the public government and thereby when they have engaged themselves beyond hope of justification fall also upon the supreme authority for fear of punishment or shame of receiving pardon ignorance of natural causes disposes a man to credulity so as to believe many times impossibilities for such know nothing to the contrary but that they may be true being unable to detect the impossibility and credulity because men love to be harkened unto in company disposes them to lying so that ignorance itself without malice is able to make a man both to believe lies and tell them and sometimes also to invent them anxiety for the future time disposes men to inquire into the causes of things because the knowledge of them make if men the better able to order the present to their best advantage curiosity or love of the knowledge of causes draws a man from consideration of the effect to seek the cause and again the cause of that cause to the necessity he must come to this thought at last that there is some cause whereof there is no former cause but is eternal which is it men call God so that it is impossible to make any profound inquiry into natural causes without being inclined thereby to believe there is one God eternal though they cannot have any idea of him in their mind answerable to his nature for as a man that is born blind hearing men talk of warming themselves by the fire and being brought to warm himself by the same may easily conceive and assure himself there is somewhat there which men call fire and is the cause of the heat he feels but cannot imagine what it is like nor have an idea of it in his mind such as they have that see it so also by the visible things of this world and their admirable order a man may conceive there is a cause of them which men call God and yet not have an idea or image of him in his mind and they that make little or no inquiry into the natural causes of things yet from the fear that proceeds from the ignorance itself of what it is that hath the power to do them much good or harm are inclined to suppose and feign unto themselves several kinds of powers invisible to stand in awe of their own imaginations and in time of distress to invoke them as also in the time of an expected good success to give them thanks making the creatures of their own fancy their gods by which means it has come to pass that from the innumerable variety of fancy men have created in the world innumerable sorts of gods and this fear of things invisible is the natural seed of that which everyone in himself calleth religion and in them that worship or fear that power otherwise than they do superstition and this seed of religion having been observed by many some of those that have observed it have been inclined thereby to nourish dress and form it into laws and to add to it of their own invention any opinion of the causes of future events by which they thought they should best be able to govern others and make unto themselves the greatest use of their powers end of chapter 11 chapter 12 of Leviathan this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Leon Meyer Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes chapter 12 of religion seeing there are no signs nor fruit of religion but in man only there is no cause to doubt but that the seed of religion is also only in man and consisted in some peculiar quality or at least in some imminent degree thereof not to be found in other living creatures and first it is peculiar to the nature of man to be inquisitive into the causes of the events they see some more some less but all men so much as to be curious in the search of the causes of their own good and evil fortune secondly upon the sight of anything that hath a beginning to think also it had a cause which determined the same to begin then when it did rather than sooner or later thirdly whereas there is no other felicity of beasts but the enjoying of their quotidian food, ease, and lusts as having little or no foresight of the time to come for want of observation and memory of the order, consequence, and dependence of the things they see men observeth how one event hath been produced by another and remembereth in them antecedents and consequence and when he cannot assure himself of the true causes of things for the causes of good and evil fortune for the most part are invisible he supposes causes of them either such as his own fancy suggesteth or trusted to the authority of other men such as he thinks to be his friends and wiser than himself the two first make anxiety for being assured that there be causes of all things that have arrived hitherto or shall arrive hereafter it is impossible for a man who continually endeavoreth to secure himself against the evil he fears and procure the good he desireth not to be in a perpetual solicitude of the time to come so that every man, especially those that are over provident are in an estate like that to be of Prometheus for as Prometheus, which interpreted as the prudent man was bound to the Helococcuses, a place of large prospect where an eagle feeding on his liver devoured in the day as much as was repaired in the night so that man, which looks too far before him in the care of future time hath his heart all the day long gnawed on by fear of death, poverty, or other calamity and has no repose nor pause of his anxiety but in sleep this perpetual fear, always accompanying mankind in the ignorance of causes as it were in the dark, must needs have for object something and therefore when there is nothing to be seen there is nothing to accuse either of their good or evil fortune but some power or agent invisible in which sense perhaps it was that some of the old poets said that the gods were at first created by human fear which, spoken of the gods, that is to say the many gods of the Gentiles is very true but the acknowledging of one god, eternal, infinite and omnipotent may more easily be derived from the desire men have to know the causes of natural bodies and their several virtues and operations then from the fear of what was to befall them in time to come for he that, from any effect he seeth come to pass should reason to the next and immediate cause thereof and from thence to the cause of that cause and plunge himself profoundly in the pursuit of causes shall at last come to this that there must be, as even the heathen philosophers confessed one first mover that is a first and eternal cause of all things which is that which men mean by the name of God and all this without thought of their fortune the solicitude whereof both inclines to fear and hinders them from the search of their causes of other things and thereby gives occasion of feigning of as many gods as there be men to feign them and for the matter or substance of the invisible agents so fancied they could not by natural cogitation fall upon any other concept but that it was the same with that of the soul of man and that the soul of man was of the same substance with that which appeared in a dream to one that sleepeth or in a looking glass to one that is awake which men not knowing that such apparitions are nothing else but the creatures of the fancy think to be real and external substances and therefore call them ghosts as the latins called them imagines and umbri and thought them spirits that is thin aerial bodies and those invisible agents which they feared to be like them save that they appear and vanish when they please but the opinion that such spirits were incorporeal or immaterial could never enter into the mind of any man by nature because though men may put together words of contradictory signification as spirit and incorporeal yet they can never have the imagination of anything answering to them and therefore men that by their own meditation arrived to the acknowledgement of one infinite omnipotent and eternal God choose rather to confess he is incomprehensible and above their understanding than to define his nature by spirit and corporeal and then confess their definition to be unintelligible or if they give him such a title it is not dogmatically with intention to make the divine nature understood but piously to honor him with attributes of significations as remote as they can be from the grossness of bodies visible then for the way by which men think that these invisible agents wrought their effects that is to say what immediate causes they used in bringing things to pass men that know not what it is we call causing that is almost all men have no other rule to guess by but by observing and remembering what they have seen to proceed the like effect at some other time or times before without seeing between the antecedent and subsequent events any dependence or connection at all and therefore from the like things past they expect the like things to come and hope for good or evil luck superstitiously from things that have no part at all in the causing of it as the Athenians did for their war at Lepanto demand another formio the Pompeian faction for their war in Africa another Cypio and others have done in diverse other occasions since in like manner they attribute their fortune to a standard by to a lucky or unlucky place to word spoken especially if the name of God be amongst them as charming and conjuring the liturgy of witches in so much as to believe they have power to turn a stone into bread bread into a man or anything into anything thirdly for the worship which naturally men exhibit the powers invisible it can be no other but such expressions of their reverence as they would use towards men gifts petitions thanks submission of body considerate addresses sober behavior premeditated words swearing that is assuring one another other promises by invoking them beyond that reason suggested nothing but leaves them either to rest there or for further ceremonies to rely on those they believe to be wiser than themselves concerning how these invisible powers declare to men the things which I'll hear after come to pass especially concerning their good or evil fortune in general or good or ill-success in any particular undertaking men are naturally at a stand save that using the conjecture of the time to come by the time passed they're very apt not only to take casual things after one or two encounters for prognostics of the like encounter ever after but also to believe the like prognostics from other men of whom they have once conceived a good opinion and in these four things opinion of ghosts ignorance of second causes devotion towards what men fear and taking of things casual for prognostics consisted the natural seed of religion which by reason of the different fancies judgments and passions of several men have grown up into ceremonies so different that those which are used by one man are for the most part ridiculous to another for these seeds have received culture from two sorts of men one sort have been that they have nourished and ordered them according to their own invention the other have done it by God's commandment and direction but both sorts have done it with a purpose to make those men that relied on them the more apt to obedience laws peace charity and civil society so that the religion of the former sort is a part of human politics and teaches part of the duty which earthly kings require their subjects and the religion of the latter sort is divine politics and contain its precepts to those that have yielded themselves subjects in the kingdom of God of the former sort were all the founders of the commonwealths and the law givers of the Gentiles of the latter sort were Abraham, Moses and our blessed savior by whom have been derived unto us the laws of the kingdom of God and for that part of religion which consisted in opinions concerning the nature of powers invisible there was almost nothing that has a name that has not been esteemed among the Gentiles in one place or another a God or devil or by their poets feigned to be animated inhabited or possessed by some spirit or other the unformed matter of the world was a God by the name of chaos the heaven, the ocean, the planets, the fire, the earth, the winds were so many gods men, women, a bird, a crocodile, a calf, a dog, a snake an onion, a leak, were deified besides that they filled almost all places with spirits called demons the plains with pan and penises or satyrs the woods with fawns and nymphs the sea with tritons and other nymphs every river and fountain with a ghost of his name and with nymphs every house with its lairies or familiars every man with his genius hell with ghosts and spiritual officers as Charon, Cerberus and the Furies and in the nighttime all places with larvae, limerace, ghosts of men deceased and a whole kingdom of fairies and bugbears they have also ascribed divinity and built temples to mere accidents and qualities such as their time, night, day, peace, concord, love, contention, virtue, honor, health, rust, fever and the like which when they prayed for or against they prayed as if they were ghosts of those names hanging over their heads and letting fall or withholding that good or evil for or against which they prayed they invoked also their own wit by the name of muses their own ignorance by the name of fortune their own lust by the name of Cupid their own rage by the name Furies their own preppy members by the name of Priapus and attributed their pollutions to Incubi and Secubi in so much as there was nothing which a poet could introduce as a person in its poem which they did not make either a god or a devil the same authors of the religion of the Gentiles observing the second ground for religion which is men's ignorance of causes and thereby their aptness to attribute their fortune to causes on which there was no dependence at all apparent took occasion to obtrude on their ignorance instead of second causes a kind of second in ministerial gods ascribing the cause of acundity to Venus the cause of arts to Apollo of subtlety and craft to Mercury of tempests and storms to Eolus and of other effects to other gods in so much as there was among the heathen almost as great variety of gods as of business and to the worship which naturally men can see fit to be used to their gods namely oblations, prayers, thanks, and the rest formerly named the same legislators of the Gentiles have added their images both in picture and sculpture that the more ignorant sort that is to say the most part of the generality of the people thinking the gods for whose representation they were made were really included and as it were housed within them might so much the more stand and fear them and endowed them with lands and houses and officers and revenues set apart from all other human uses that is consecrated made holy to those their idols as caverns, groves, woods, mountains, and whole islands and have attributed to them not only the shape some of men, some of beasts, some of monsters but also the faculties and passions of men and beasts as sense, speech, sex, lust, generation and this not only by mixing one with another to propagate the kind of gods but also by mixing with men and women to beget mongrel gods and but inmates of heaven as Bacchus, Hercules, and others besides anger, revenge and other passions of living creatures and the actions proceeding from them as fraud, theft, adultery, sodomy, and any vice that may be taken for an effect of power or a cause of pleasure and all such vices as amongst men are taken to be against law rather than against honor lastly to the prognostics of time to come which are naturally but conjectures upon the experience of time past and supernaturally divine revelation the same authors of the religion of the Gentiles partly upon pretended experience partly upon pretended revelation have added innumerable other superstitious ways of divination and made men believe that they should find their fortunes sometimes in the ambiguous or senseless answers of the priests at Delphi, Delos, Ammon, and other famous oracles which answers were made ambiguous by design to own the event both ways or absurd by the intoxicating vapor of the place which is very frequent in Sulphur's caverns sometimes in the leaves of the Sibles of whose prophecies, like those perhaps of Nostradamus for the fragments now extant seem to be the invention of later times there were some books in reputation in the time of the Roman Republic sometimes in the insignificant speeches of madmen supposed to be possessed with the divine spirit which possession they called enthusiasm and these kinds of foretelling events were accounted theomancy or prophecy sometimes in the aspect of the stars of their nativity which was called horoscopy and esteemed a part of judiciary astrology sometimes in their own hopes and fears called thumomancy or presage sometimes in the prediction of witches that pretended conference with the dead which is called necromancy, conjuring and witchcraft and is but juggling in confederate navery sometimes in casual flight or feeding of birds called augury sometimes in the entrails of a sacrifice beast which was horospacy sometimes in dreams sometimes in croaking of ravens or chattering of birds sometimes in the lineaments of the face which was called metaposcopy or by palmistry in the lines of the hand in casual words called amana sometimes in monsters or unusual accidents as eclipses, comets, rare meteors, earthquakes inundations, uncouthpers and the like which they called portenta and ostenta because they thought them to portend or foreshow some great calamity to come sometimes in mere lottery as cross and pile counting holes in a sieve dipping of verses and Homer and Virgil and innumerable other such vain conceits so easier men to be drawn to believe anything from such men as have gotten credit with them and can with gentleness and dexterity take hold of their fear and ignorance and therefore the first founders and legislators of commonwealth amongst the Gentiles whose ends were only to keep the people in obedience and peace have in all places taken care first to imprint their minds a belief that those precepts which they gave concerning religion might not be thought to proceed from their own device but from the dictates of some God or other spirit or else that they themselves were of a higher nature than mere mortals that their laws might the more easily be received so Numa Pompilius pretended to receive the ceremony instituted amongst the Romans from the Nymph Egeria and the first king and founder of the kingdom of Peru pretended himself and his wife to be the children of the son and Muhammad to set up his new religion pretended to have conferences with the Holy Ghost in form of a dove secondly Naph had a care to make it believed that the same things were displeasing to the gods which were forbidden by the laws thirdly to prescribe ceremonies, supplications sacrifices and festivals by which they were to believe the anger of the gods might be appeased and that ill success and war great contagions of sickness earthquakes and each man's private misery came from the anger of the gods and their anger from the neglect to their worship or the forgetting or mistaking some point of the ceremonies required and though amongst the ancient Romans men were not forbidden to deny that which in the poets is written of the pains and pleasures after this life which divers of great authority and gravity in that state have in their harangues openly derided yet that belief was always more cherished than the contrary and by these and such other institutions they obtained in order to their end which was the piece of the commonwealth that the common people in their misfortunes letting the fault on neglect or error in their ceremonies or on their own disobedience to the laws were the less apt to mutiny against their governors and being entertained with the pomp and pastime of festivals and public games made in honor of the gods needed nothing else but bread to keep them from discontent, murmuring and commotion against the state and therefore the Romans that had conquered the greatest part of the then known world made no scruple of tolerating any religion whatsoever in the city of Rome itself unless it had something in it that could not consist of their civil government nor do we read that any religion was there forbidden but that of the Jews who, being the peculiar kingdom of God thought it unlawful to acknowledge subjection to any mortal king or state whatsoever and thus you see how the religion of the Gentiles was a part of their policy but where God himself by supernatural revelation planted religion there he also made to himself a peculiar kingdom and gave laws not only a behavior toward himself but also towards one another and thereby in the kingdom of God the policy and law civil are a part of religion and therefore the distinction of temporal and spiritual domination hath there no place it is true that God is king of all the earth yet he may be king of a peculiar and chosen nation for there is no more incongruity therein than that he that hath a general command of the whole army should have with all a peculiar regiment or company of his own God is king of all the earth by his power but of his chosen people he is king by covenant but to speak more largely of the kingdom of God both by nature and covenant I have in the following discourse assigned another place from the propagation of religion it is not hard to understand the causes of the resolution of the same and do its first seeds or principles which are only an opinion of a deity and powers invisible and supernatural that can never be so abolished out of human nature but that new religions may again be made to spring out of them by the culture of such men as for such purpose are in reputation for seeing all formed religion is founded at first upon the faith which a multitude hath in some one person whom they believe not only to be a wise man and to labor to procure their happiness but also to be a holy man to whom God himself vouchsafes to declare his will supernaturally it followeth necessarily when they that have the government or religion shall come to have either the wisdom of those men their sincerity or their love suspected or that they shall be unable to show any probable token of divine revelation that the religion which they desire to uphold must be suspected likewise and without the fear of the civil sword contradicted and rejected that which takeeth away the reputation of wisdom in him that formeth a religion or addeth to it when it is already formed is the enjoining of a belief of contradictories for both parts of a contradiction cannot possibly be true and therefore to enjoing a belief of them is an argument of ignorance which detects the author in that and discredits him in all things else he shall propound as from revelation supernatural which revelation a man may indeed have of many things above but of nothing against natural reason that which takeeth away the reputation of sincerity is the doing or saying of such things as appear to be signs that what they require other men to believe is not believed by themselves all which doings or sayings are therefore called scandalous because they be stumbling blocks that make men to fall in the way of religion as injustice cruelty profaneness avarice and luxury for who can believe that he that doth ordinarily such actions as proceed from any of these routes believe that there is any such invisible power to be feared as he a frighteth other men with all for lesser faults that which takeeth away the reputation of love is the being detected of private ends as when the belief they require others conduceth or seemeth to conduce to the requiring of dominion, riches, dignity or secure pleasure to themselves only or specially for that which men re-benefit by to themselves they are thought to do for their own sakes and not for the love of others lastly, the testimony that men can render of divine calling can be no other than the operation of miracles or true prophecy, which is also a miracle or extraordinary felicity and therefore to those points of religion which have been received from them that did such miracles those that are added by such as approved not their calling by some miracle obtain no greater belief than what the custom and laws of the places in which they be educated have wrought into them for as in natural things men of judgment require natural signs and arguments so in supernatural things they require signs supernatural, which are miracles before they consent inwardly and from their hearts all which causes of the weakening of men's faith do manifestly appear in the examples following first, we have the example of the children of Israel who, when Moses that had approved his calling to them by miracles and by the happy conduct of them out of Egypt was absent but 40 days revolted from the worship of the true God recommended to them by him and setting up Exodus 32 1-2 a golden calf for their God relapsed into the idolatry of the Egyptians from whom they'd been so lately delivered and again, after Moses, Aaron, Joshua and that generation which had seen the great works of God in Israel were dead another generation arose and served Baal judges 211 so that miracles failing, faith also failed again, when the sons of Samuel being constituted by their father judges in Beersheba received bribes and judged unjustly the people of Israel refused anymore to have God to be their king in other manner than he was king of other people and therefore cried out to Samuel to choose them a king after the manner of the nations for Samuel 8-3 so that justice failing, faith also failed in so much as they deposed their God from reigning over them and whereas in the planting of Christian religion the oracle ceased in all parts of the Roman empire and the number of Christians increased wonderfully every day and in every place by the preaching of the apostles and evangelists a great part of that success may reasonably be attributed to the contempt into which the priests of the Gentiles of that time had brought themselves by their uncleanness, avarice and juggling between princes also the religion of the Church of Rome was partly for the same cause abolished in England and many other parts of Christendom in so much as the failing of virtue in the pastors maketh faith fail in the people and partly from bringing the philosophy and doctrine of Aristotle into religion by the schoolmen from whence there arose so many contradictions and absurdities as brought the clergy into a reputation in both of ignorance and a fraudulent intention and inclined people to revolt from them either against the will of their own princes as in France and Holland or with their will as in England lastly, amongst the points by the Church of Rome declared necessary for salvation there be so many manifestly to the advantage of the Pope so many of the spiritual subjects residing in the territories of other Christian princes that were not for the mutual emulation of those princes they might without war or trouble exclude all foreign authority as easily as it has been excluded in England for who is there that does not say to whose benefit it conduceth to have it believed that a king hath not his authority from Christ unless a bishop crown him that a king if he be a priest cannot marry that whether a prince be born in lawful marriage or not must be judged by authority from Rome that subjects may be freed from their allegiance if by the court of Rome the king be judged a heretic that a king as children of France may be deposed by a pope as Pope Zachary for no cause and as kingdom given to one of the subjects that the clergy and regulars in what country so ever shall be exempt from the jurisdiction of their king in cases criminal or who does not see to whose profit redound the fees of private masses and the values of purgatory with other signs of private interest enough to modify the most lively faith if as I have said the civil magistrate in custom did not more sustain it than in the opinion they have the sanctity wisdom or property of their teachers so that I may attribute all the changes of religion in the world to one in the same cause and that is unpleasing priests and those not only amongst Catholics but even in that church that has presumed most of reformation end of chapter twelve chapter thirteen this is a liverbox recording all of the box recordings on the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liverbox dot org leviathan by thomas hobs chapter thirteen of the natural condition of mankind as concerning their felicity and misery nature hath made men so equal in the faculties of body and mind as that though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body or of quicker mind than another when all is reckoned together the difference between man and man is not so considerable as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend as well as he for as to the strength of body the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest either by secret machination or by confederacy with others that are in the same danger with himself as to the faculties of mind setting aside the arts granted upon words and especially that skill of proceeding upon general and infallible rules called science which very few have but in few things as being not a native faculty born with us nor tamed as prudence while we look after someone else i find yet a greater equality amongst men than that of strength for prudence is but experience which equal time equally bestows an all men in those things they equally apply themselves unto that which may perhaps make such equality incredible is but a vain conceit of one's own wisdom which almost all men think they have in a greater degree than the vulgar that is than all men but themselves and a few others whom by fame or for concurring with themselves they approve for such is the nature of men that have so ever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty or more eloquent or more learned yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves for they see their own wit at hand and other men's at a distance but this proveth rather that men are in that point equal than unequal for there is not ordinarily a greater sign of the equal distribution of anything than that every man is contented with his share from this equality of ability arises the equality of hope in the attaining of our ends and therefore if any two men desire the same thing which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy they become enemies and in the way to their end which is principally their own conservation and sometimes their delectation only endeavor to destroy or subdue one another and from hence it comes to pass that where an invader hath no more to fear than another man's single power if one plant so build or possess a convenient seat others may probably be expected to come prepared with forces united to dispossess and deprive him not only of the fruit of his labor but also of his life or liberty and the invader again is in the like danger of another and from this diffidence of one another there is no way for any man to secure himself so reasonable as anticipation that is by force or wiles to master the persons of all men he can so long till he see no other power great enough to endanger him and this is no more than his own conservation requireth and is generally allowed also because there be some that taking pleasure in contemplating their own power in the acts of conquest which they pursue farther than their security requires if others that otherwise would be glad to be at ease within modest bounds should not by invasion increase their power they would not be able long time by standing only on their defense to subsist and by consequence such augmentation of dominion over men being necessary to a man's conservation it ought to be allowed him men have no pleasure but on the contrary a great deal of grief in keeping company where there is no power able to over all them all for every man looketh that his companion should value him at the same rate he sets upon himself and upon all signs of contempt or undervaluing naturally endeavors as far as he dares which amongst them that have no common power to keep them in quiet is far enough to make them destroy each other to exhort a greater value from his conteminers by damage and from others by the example in the nature of man we find three principal causes of quarrel competition secondly diffidence thirdly glory the first make of men invade for gain the second for safety and the third for reputation the first use violence to make themselves masters of other men's persons wives children and cattle the second to defend them the third for trifles as a word a smile a different opinion and any other sign of undervalue either direct in their prisons or by reflection in that kindred their friends their nation their profession or their name hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe they are in that condition which is called war and such a war as is of every man against every man for war consists of not in battle only or in the act of fighting but in a tract of time or in the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known and therefore the notion of times to be considered in the nature of war as it is in the nature of weather for as the nature of foul weather left not in a shower or two of rain but in an inclination there too of many days together so the nature of war consists of not in actual fighting but in the known disposition there too during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary all other time is peace whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war where every man is enemy to every man the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them with all in such condition there is no place for industry because the fruit thereof is uncertain and consequently no culture of the earth no navigation nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea no commodious building no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force no knowledge of the face of the earth no account of time no arts no letters no society and which is worst of all continual fear and danger of violent death in the life of man solitary poor nasty brutish and short it may seem strange to some man that has not well weighed these things that nature should thus dissociate and render men apt to invade and destroy one another and he may therefore not trusting to this inference made from the passions desire perhaps to have the same confirmed by experience let him therefore consider with himself when taking a journey he arms himself and seeks to go well accompanied when going to sleep he locks his doors when even in his house he locks his chests and this when he knows there be laws and public officers armed to revenge all injuries shall be done him what opinion he has of his fellow subjects when he rides armed of his fellow citizens when he locks his doors and of his children and servants when he locks his chests does he not there as much accused mankind by his actions as I do by my words but neither of us accused man's nature in it the desires and other passions of man are in themselves no sin no more are the actions that proceed from those passions until they know a law that forbids them which till laws be made they cannot know nor can any law be made till they have agreed upon the person that shall make it it may per adventure be thought that there was never such a time nor condition of war as this and I believe it was never generally so over all the world but there are many places where they live so now for the savage people in many places of America except the government of small families the concord where I've depended on natural lust I have no government at all and live at this day in that British manner as I said before how so ever it may be perceived what manner of life there would be where there were no common power to fear by the manner of life which men that have formerly lived under a peaceful government to use to degenerate into a civil war but though there had never been any time where in particular men were in a condition of war one against another yet in all times kings and persons of sovereign authority because of their independency there are in continual jealousies and in the state and posture of gladiators having their weapons pointing and their eyes fixed on one another that is their forts, garrisons and guns upon the frontiers of the kingdoms and continual spies upon their neighbors which is a posture of war but because they uphold thereby the industry of their subjects there does not follow from it that misery which accompanies the liberty of particular men to this war of every man against every man this also is consequent that nothing can be unjust the notions of right and wrong justice and injustice there have no place where there is no common power there is no law where no law no injustice force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues justice and injustice on none of the faculties neither of the body nor mind if they were they might be in a man that were alone in the world as well as his senses and passions there are qualities that relate to men in society not in solitude it is consequent also to the same condition that there be no propriety no dominion no mine and thine distinct but only that to be every man's that he can get and for so long as he can keep it and thus much for the ill condition which man by mere nature is actually placed in though with a possibility to come out of it consisting partly in the passions partly in his reason the passions that incline men to peace are fear of death desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living and a hope by their industry to obtain them and reason suggests a convenient articles of peace upon which men may be drawn to agreement these articles are they which otherwise are called the laws of nature where I shall speak more particularly in the two following chapters and chapter thirteen this recording is in the public domain chapter fourteen of leviathan this is a liverbox recording all the products recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liverbox dot org leviathan by thomas hobs chapter fourteen of the first and second natural laws and of contracts the right of nature which writers commonly call use natural a is the liberty each man have to use his own power as he will himself for the preservation of his own nature that is to say of his own life and consequently of doing anything which in his own judgment and reason he shall conceive to be the aptest means there on to by liberty is understood according to the proper signification of the word the absence of external impediments which impediments may often take away part of a man's power to do what he would but cannot hinder him from using the power left him according as his judgment and reason shall dictate to him a law of nature lex naturalis is a precept or general rule found out by reason by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life or take it away the means of preserving the same and to omit that by which he think it may be best preserved for though they that speak of the subject used to confound use and lex right and law yet they ought to be distinguished because right consists of in liberty to do or to forbear whereas law determineth and bindeth to one of them so that law and right differ as much as obligation and liberty in one and the same matter are inconsistent and because the condition of man as have been declared in the precedent chapter is a condition of war of everyone against everyone in which case everyone is governed by his own reason there is nothing he can make use of that may not be a help unto him in preserving his life against his enemies it followeth that in such condition every man has a right to everything even to one another's body and therefore as long as this natural right of every man to everything endureth there can be no security to any man how strong or wise so ever he be of living out the time which nature ordinarily alloweth men to live and consequently it is a precept or general rule of reason that every man ought to endeavor peace as far as he has hope of obtaining it and when he cannot obtain it that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war the first branch of which rule containeth the first and fundamental law of nature which is to seek peace and follow it the sum of the right of nature which is by all means we can to defend ourselves from this fundamental law of nature by which men are commanded to endeavor peace is derived the second law that a man be willing when others are so too as far forth as for peace and defense of himself he shall think it necessary to lay down this right to all things and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himself for as long as every man holdeth this right of doing anything he likeeth so long are all men in the condition of war but if other men will not lay down their right as well as he then there is no reason for anyone to divest himself of his for that were to expose himself to pray which no man is bound to rather than to dispose himself to peace this is that law of the gospel whatsoever you require that others should do to you that do ye to them and that law of all men quattibi fieri non wies alterine fercheris to lay down a man's right to anything is to divest himself of the liberty of hindering another of the benefit of his own right to the same for he that renounceeth or passeth away his right giveeth not to any other man a right which he had not before because there is nothing to which every man had not right by nature only standeth out of his way that he may enjoy his own original right without hindrance from him not without hindrance from another so that the effect which redoundeth to one man by another man's defect of right is but so much diminution of impediments to the use of his own right original right is laid aside either by simply renouncing it or by transferring it to another by simply renouncing when he cares not to whom the benefit thereof redoundeth by transferring when he intendeth the benefit thereof to some certain person or persons and when a man hath in either manner abandoned or granted away his right then is he said to be obliged or bound not to hinder those to whom such right is granted or abandoned from the benefit of it and that he ought and it is duty not to make void that voluntary act of his own and that such hindrance is injustice and injury as being seen a jury the right being before renounced or transferred so that injury or injustice in the controversies of the world is somewhat like to that which in the disputations of scholars is called absurdity for as it is there called an absurdity to contradict what one maintained in the beginning so in the world it is called injustice and injury voluntarily to undo that which from the beginning he had voluntarily done the way by which a man either simply renounceeth or transfereth his right is a declaration or signification by some voluntary and sufficient sign or signs that he doth so renounce or transfer or hath so renounced or transferred the same to him that accepteth it and these signs are either words only or actions only as it happeneth most often both words and actions and the same are the bonds by which men are bound and obliged bonds that have their strength not from their own nature for nothing is more easily broken than a man's word but from fear of some evil consequence upon the rupture when so ever a man transfereth his right or renounceeth it it is either in consideration of some right reciprocally transferred to himself or for some other good he hopeeth for thereby for it is a voluntary act and of the voluntary acts of every man the object is some good to himself and therefore there be some rights which no man can be understood by any words or other signs to have abandoned or transferred as first a man cannot lay down the right of resisting them that assault him by force to take away his life because he cannot be understood to aim thereby at any good to himself the same may be set of wounds and chains and imprisonment both because there is no benefit consequent to such patience as there is to the patience of suffering another to be wounded or imprisoned as also because a man cannot tell when he seeeth men proceed against him by violence whether they intend his death or not and lastly the motive and end for which this renouncing and transferring of right is introduced is nothing else but the security of a man's person in his life and in the means of so preserving life as not to be weary of it and therefore if a man by words or other signs seem to spoil himself of the end for which those signs were intended he is not to be understood as if he meant it or that it was his will but that he was ignorant of how such words and actions were to be interpreted the mutual transferring of right is that which men call contract there is difference between transferring of right to the thing and transferring or tradition that is delivery of the thing itself for the thing may be delivered together with the translation of the right as in buying and selling with ready money or exchange of goods or lands and it may be delivered sometime after again one of the contractors may deliver the thing contracted for on his part and leave the other to perform his part at some determinate time after and in the meantime be trusted and then the contract on his part is called packed or covenant or both parts may contract now to perform here after in which cases he that is to perform in time to come being trusted his performance is called keeping of promise or faith and the failing of performance if it be voluntary violation of faith when the transferring of right is not mutual but one of the parties transfer it in hope to gain thereby friendship or service from another or from his friends or in hope to gain the reputation of charity or magnanimity or to deliver his mind from the pain of compassion or in hope of reward in heaven this is not contract but gift free gift grace which words signify one and the same thing signs of contract are either express or by inference express our words spoken with understanding of what they signify and such words are either of the time present or past as I give I grant I have given I have granted I will this be yours or of the future as I will give I will grant which words of the future are called promise signs by inference are sometimes the consequence of words sometimes the consequence of silence sometimes the consequence of actions sometimes the consequence of forbearing an action and generally assigned by inference of any contract is whatsoever sufficiently argues the will of the contractor words alone if they be of the time to come and contain a bear promise are an insufficient sign of a free gift and therefore not obligatory for if they be of the time to come as tomorrow I will give they are a sign I have not given yet and consequently that my right is not transferred but remaineth till I transfer it by some other act but if the words be of the time present or past as I have given or do give to be delivered tomorrow then is my tomorrow's right given away today and that by the virtue of the words though there were no other argument of my will and there is a great difference in the signification of these words wallo hock tuum esse cras and cras dabo that is between I will that this be thine tomorrow and I will give it the tomorrow for the word I will in the former manner of speech signifies an act of the will present but in the latter it signifies a promise of an act of the will to come and therefore the former words being of the present transfer a future right the latter that be of the future transfer nothing but if there be other signs of the will to transfer a right besides words though the gift be free yet may the right be understood to pass by words of the future as if a man propound a prize to him that comes first to the end of a race the gift is free and though the words be of the future the right passive for if he would not have his words so be understood he should not have let them run in contracts the right passive not only where the words are of the time present or past but also where they are of the future because all contract is mutual translation or change of right and therefore he that promise of only because he have already received the benefit for which he promise of is to be understood as if he intended the right should pass for unless he had been content to have his words so understood the other would not have performed his part first and for that cause in buying and selling and other acts of contract a promise is equivalent to a covenant and therefore obligatory he that performeth first in the case of a contract is said to merit that which he is to receive by the performance of the other and he hath it as do also when a prize is propounded to many which is to be given to him only that winneth or money is thrown amongst many to be enjoyed by them that catch it though this be a free gift yet so to win or so to catch is to merit and to have it as do for the right is transferred in the propounding of the prize and in throwing down the money though it be not determined to whom but by the event of the contention but there is between these two sorts of merit this difference that in contract i merit by virtue of my own power and the contractors need but in this case of free gift i am enabled to merit only by the benignity of the giver in contract i merit at the contractors hand that he should depart with his right in this case of gift i merit not that the giver should part with his right but that when he has parted with it it should be mine rather than another's and this i think to be the meaning of that distinction of the schools between merit whom congrui and merit whom condign for god almighty having promised paradise to those men hoodwinked with carnal desires that can walk through this world according to the precepts and limits prescribed by him they say he that shall so walk shall merit paradise ex congruo but because no man can demand a right to it by his own righteousness or any other power in himself by the free grace of god only they say no man can merit paradise ex condigno this i say i think is the meaning of that distinction but because disputers do not agree upon the signification of their own terms of art longer than it serves their turn i will not affirm anything of their meaning only this i say when a gift is given indefinitely as a prize to be contended for he that winneth meriteth and may claim the prize as do if a covenant be made wherein neither of the parties perform presently but trust one another in the condition of mere nature which is a condition of war of every man against every man upon any reasonable suspicion it is void but if there be a common power set over them both with right and force sufficient to compel performance it is not void for he that performeth first has no assurance the other will perform after because the bonds of words are too weak to bridle men's ambition avarice anger and other passions without the fear of some coercive power which in the condition of mere nature where all men are equal and judges of the justness of their own fears cannot possibly be supposed and therefore he which performeth first does but betray himself to his enemy contrary to the right he can never abandon of defending his life and means of living but in a civil estate where there is a power set up to constrain those that would otherwise violate their faith that fear is no more reasonable and for that cause he which by the covenant is to perform first is obliged so to do the cause of fear which maketh such a covenant invalid must be always something arising after the covenant made as some new fact or other sign of the will not to perform else it cannot make the covenant void for that which could not hinder a man from promising ought not to be admitted as a hindrance of performing he that transfereth any right transfereth the means of enjoying it as far as lieth in his power as he that selleth land is understood to transfer the urbage and whatsoever grows upon it nor can he that sells a mill turn away the stream that drives it and they that give to a man the right of government in sovereignty are understood to give him the right of levying money to maintain soldiers and of appointing magistrates for the administration of justice to make covenants with brute beasts is impossible because not understanding our speech they understand not nor accept of any translation of right nor can translate any right to another and without mutual acceptation there is no covenant and to make covenants with God is impossible but by mediation of such as God speaketh to either by revelation supernatural or by his lieutenants that govern under him and in his name for otherwise we know not whether our covenants be accepted or not and therefore they that vow anything contrary to any law of nature vow in vain as being a thing unjust to pay such vow and if it be a thing commanded by the law of nature it's not the vow but the law that binds them the matter or subject of a covenant is always something that falleth under deliberation for to covenant is an act of the will that is to say an act and the last act of deliberation and is therefore always understood to be something to come and which judged possible for him that covenanteth to perform and therefore to promise that which is known to be impossible is no covenant but if that prove impossible afterwards which before was thought possible the covenant is valid and bindeth though not to the thing itself yet to the value or if that also be impossible to the unfeigned endeavor of performing as much as is possible for to more no man can be obliged men are freed of their covenants two ways by performing or by being forgiven for performance is the natural end of obligation and forgiveness the restitution of liberty as being a retransferring of that right in which the obligation consisted covenants entered into by fear in the condition of mere nature are obligatory for example if I covenant to pay a ransom or service for my life to an enemy I am bound to buy it for it is a contract wherein one receiveeth the benefit of life the other is to receive money or service for it and consequently where no other law as in the condition of mere nature forbideth the performance the covenants is valid therefore prisoners of war if trusted with the payment of the ransom are obliged to pay it and if a weaker prince make a disadvantageous piece with a stronger for fear he is bound to keep it unless as hath been said before there arises some new and just cause of fear to renew the war and even in commonwealths if I be forced to redeem myself from a thief by promising him money I am bound to pay it till the civil law discharge me for whatsoever I may lawfully do without obligation the same I may lawfully covenant to do through fear and what I lawfully covenant I cannot lawfully break a former covenant makes void a later for a man that hath passed away his right to one man today hath it not to pass tomorrow to another and therefore a later promise passeth no right but is null a covenant not to defend myself from force by force is always void for as I have shown before no man can transfer or lay down his right to save himself from death wounds and imprisonment the avoiding whereof is the only end of laying down any right and therefore the promise of not resisting force in no covenant transfereth any right nor is obliging for though a man may covenant thus unless I do so or so kill me he cannot covenant thus unless I do so or so I will not resist you when you come to kill me for man by nature chooseeth the lesser evil which is danger of death in resisting rather than the greater which is certain and present death in not resisting and this is granted to be true by all men in that they lead criminals to execution and prison with armed men notwithstanding that such criminals have consented to the law by which they are condemned a covenant to accuse oneself without assurance of pardon is likewise invalid for in the condition of nature where every man is judged there is no place for accusation and in the civil state the accusation is followed with punishment which being force a man is not obliged not to resist the same is also true of the accusation of those by whose condemnation a man falls into misery as of a father, wife, or benefactor for the testimony of such an accuser if it be not willingly given is presumed to be corrupted by nature and therefore not to be received and where a man's testimony is not to be credited he is not bound to give it also accusations upon torture are not to be reputed as testimonies for torture is to be used but as a means of conjecture and light in the further examination in search of truth and what is in that case confessed tendeth to the ease of him that is tortured not to the informing of the torturers and therefore ought not to have the credit of a sufficient testimony for whether he deliver himself by true or false accusation he does it by the right of preserving his own life the force of words being as I have formerly noted too weak to hold men to the performance of their covenants there are in man's nature but too imaginable helps to strengthen it and those are either a fear of the consequence of breaking their word or a glory or pride in appearing not to need to break it this latter is a generosity too rarely found to be presumed on especially in the pursuers of wealth, command, or sensual pleasure which are the greatest part of mankind the passion to be reckoned upon is fear whereof there be two very general objects one the power of spirits invisible the other the power of those men they shall there in offend of these two though the former be the greater power yet the fear of the latter is commonly the greater fear the fear of the former is in every man his own religion which hath place in the nature of man before civil society the latter hath not so at least not place enough to keep men to their promises because in the condition of mere nature the inequality of power is not discerned but by the event of battle so that before the time of civil society or in the interruption thereof by war there is nothing can strengthen a covenant of peace agreed on against the temptations of avarice, ambition, lust or other strong desire but the fear of that invisible power which they every one worship as God and fear as a revenger of their perfidy all therefore that can be done between two men not subject to civil power is to put one another to swear by the God he feareth which swearing or oath is a form of speech added to a promise by which he that promises signifyeth that unless he perform he renounceeth the mercy of his God or calleth to him for vengeance on himself such was the heathen form let Jupiter kill me else as I kill this beast so is our form I shall do thus and thus so help me God and this with the rites and ceremonies which every one useeth in his own religion that the fear of breaking faith might be the greater by this it appears that an oath taken according to any other form or rite than his that sweareth is in vain and no oath and that there is no swearing by anything which the swearer thinks not God for though men have sometimes used to swear by their kings for fear or flattery yet they would have it thereby understood they attributed to them divine honor and that swearing unnecessarily by God is but profaning of his name and swearing by other things as men do in common discourse is not swearing but an impious custom gotten by too much vehemence of talking it appears also that the oath adds nothing to the obligation for a covenant if lawful binds in the sight of God without the oath as much as with it if unlawful bindeth not at all though it be confirmed with an oath end of chapter fourteen this recording is in the public domain chapter fifteen of Leviathan this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes chapter fifteen of other laws of nature from that law of nature by which we are obliged to transfer to another such rights as being retained hinder the peace of mankind their followeth a third which is this that men perform their covenants made without which covenants are in vain and but empty words and the right of all men to all things remaining we are still in the condition of war and in this law of nature consists of the fountain and original of justice for where no covenant hath preceded there hath no right been transferred and every man has right to everything and consequently no action can be unjust but when a covenant is made then to break it is unjust and the definition of injustice is no other than the not performance of covenant and whatsoever is not unjust is just but because covenants of mutual trust where there is a fear of not performance on either part as have been said in the former chapter are invalid though the original justice be the making of covenants yet injustice actually there can be none till the cause of such fear be taken away while men are in the natural condition of war cannot be done therefore before the names of just and unjust can have place there must be some coercive power to compel men equally to the performance of their covenants by the terror of some punishment greater than the benefit they expect by the breach of their covenant and to make good that propriety which by mutual contract men acquire in recompense of the universal right they abandon and such power there is none before the erection of a commonwealth and this is also to be gathered out of the ordinary definition of justice in the schools for they say that justice is the constant will of giving to every man his own and therefore where there is no own that is no propriety there is no injustice and where there is no coercive power erected that is where there is no commonwealth there is no propriety all men having right to all things therefore where there is no commonwealth there nothing is unjust so that the nature of justice consists of in keeping a valid covenants but the validity of covenants begins not with the constitution of a civil power sufficient to compel men to keep them and then it is also that propriety begins the fool hath said in his heart there is no such thing as justice and sometimes also with his tongue seriously alleging that every man's conservation and contentment being committed to his own care there could be no reason why every man might not do what he thought conduced there unto and therefore also to make or not make keep or not keep covenants was not against reason when it conduced to one's benefit he does not therein deny that there be covenants and that they are sometimes broken sometimes kept and that such breach of them may be called injustice and the observation of them justice but he questioneth whether injustice taking away the fear of god for the same fool hath said in his heart there is no god not sometimes stand with that reason which dictated to every man his own good and particularly then when it conduced to such a benefit as shall put a man in a condition to neglect not only the dispraise and revilings but also the power of other men the kingdom of god is gotten by violence but what if it could be gotten by unjust violence were it against reason so to get it when it is impossible to receive hurt by it and if it be not against reason it is not against justice or else justice is not to be approved for good from such reasoning as this successful wickedness hath obtained the name of virtue and some that in all other things have disallowed the violation of faith yet have allowed it when it is for the getting of a kingdom and the heathen that believed that Saturn was deposed by his son Jupiter believed nevertheless the same Jupiter to be the avenger of injustice somewhat like to a piece of law in Koch's commentaries on Littleton where he says if the right air of the crown be attained of treason yet the crown shall descend to him and EO instante the attainer be void from which instances a man will be very prone to infer that when the heir apparent of a kingdom shall kill him that is in possession though his father you may call it injustice or by what other name you will yet it can never be against reason seeing all the voluntary actions of men tend to the benefit of themselves and those actions are most reasonable that conduce most to their ends specious reasoning is nevertheless false for the question is not of promises mutual where there is no security of performance on either side as when there is no civil power erected over the party's promising for such promises are no covenants but either where one of the parties has performed already or where there is a power to make him perform there is the question whether it be against reason that is against the benefit of the other to perform or not and i say it is not against reason for the manifestation whereof we are to consider that when a man doth a thing which not withstanding anything can be foreseen and reckoned on tend to his own destruction also ever some accident which he could not expect arriving may turn it to his benefit yet such events do not make it reasonably or wisely done secondly that in a condition of war wherein every man to every man for want of a common power to keep them all in awe is an enemy there is no man can hope by his own strength or wit to defend himself from destruction without the help of confederates where everyone expects the same defense by the confederation that anyone else does and therefore he which declares he thinks it reason to deceive those that help him can in reason expect no other means of safety than what can be had from his own single power he therefore that breaketh his covenant and consequently declare that he thinks he may with reason do so cannot be received into any society that unite themselves for peace and defense but by the error of them that receive him nor when he is received be retained in it without seeing the danger of their error which errors a man cannot reasonably reckon upon as the means of his security and therefore if he be left or cast out of society he perisheth and if he live in society it is by the errors of other men which he could not foresee nor reckon upon and consequently against the reason of his preservation and so as all men that contribute not to his destruction for bear him only out of ignorance of what is good for themselves as for the instance of gaining the secure and perpetual felicity of heaven by any way it is frivolous there being but one way imaginable and that is not breaking but keeping of covenant and for the other instance of attaining sovereignty by rebellion it is manifest that though the event follow yet because it cannot reasonably be expected but rather the contrary and because by gaining it so others are taught to gain the same in like manner the attempt thereof is against reason justice therefore that is to say keeping of covenant is a rule of reason by which we are forbidden to do anything destructive to our life and consequently a law of nature there be some that proceed further and will not have the law of nature to be those rules which can do to the preservation of man's life on earth to the attaining of an eternal felicity after death to which they think the breach of covenant make induce and consequently be just and reasonable such are they that think it a work of merit to kill or depose or rebel against the sovereign power constituted over them by their own consent but because there is no natural knowledge of man's estate after death much less of the reward that is then to be given to breach of faith only a belief grounded upon other men's saying that they know it supernaturally or that they know those that knew them that knew others that knew it supernaturally breach of faith cannot be called a preceptive reason or nature others that allow for a law of nature the keeping of faith do nevertheless make exception of certain persons as heretics and such as use not to perform their covenant to others and this also is against reason for if any fault of a man be sufficient to discharge our covenant made same-aughting reason to have been sufficient to have hindered the making of it the names adjusted and unjust when they are attributed to men signify one thing and when they are attributed to actions another when they are attributed to men they signify conformity or in conformity of manners to reason but when they are attributed to action they signify the conformity or in conformity to reason not have manners or manner of life of particular actions. A just man, therefore, is he that taketh all the care he can that his actions may be all just, and an unjust man is he that neglecteth it. And such men are more often in our language styled by the names of righteous and unrighteous than just and unjust, though the meaning be the same. Therefore, a righteous man does not lose that title by one or a few unjust actions that proceed from sudden passion or mistake of things or persons. Nor does an unrighteous man lose his character for such an action as he does, or for bears to do, for fear, because his will is not framed by the justice, but by the apparent benefit of what he is to do. That which gives to human actions the relish of justice is a certain nobleness or gallantness of courage, rarely found, by which a man scorns to be beholding for the contentment of his life to fraud or breach of promise. This justice of the manners is that which is meant where justice is called a virtue, and injustice a vice. But the justice of actions denominates men, not just, but guiltless, and the injustice of the same, which is also called injury, gives them but the name of guilty. Again, the injustice of manners is the disposition or aptitude to do injury, and is injustice before it proceed to act, and without supposing any individual person injured. But the injustice of an action, that is to say injury, supposes an individual person injured, namely him to whom the covenant was made, and therefore many times the injury is received by one man when the damage redoundeth to another. As when the master commandeth his servant to give money to a stranger, if it be not done, the injury is done to the master, whom he had before covenanted to obey, but the damage redoundeth to the stranger, to whom he had no obligation and therefore could not injure him. And so also in commonwealths, private men may remit to one another their debts, but not robberies or other violences, whereby they are endammaged, because the detaining of debt is an injury to themselves. But robbery and violence are injuries to the person of the commonwealth. Whatsoever is done to a man conformable to his own will signified to the doer, is not injury to him. For if he that doeth it hath not passed away his original right to do what he please by some antecedent covenant, there is no breach of covenant, and therefore no injury done him. And if he have, then his will to have a done being signified is a release of that covenant, and so again, there is no injury done him. Justice of actions is by writers divided into commutative and distributive. And the former they say consisteth in proportion arithmetical, the latter in proportion geometrical. Commutative therefore they place in the equality of value of the things contracted for and distributive in the distribution of equal benefit to men of equal merit. As if it were injustice to sell dearer than we buy, or to give more to a man than he merits. The value of all things contracted for is measured by the appetite of the contractors, and therefore the just value is that which they be contented to give. And merit, besides that which is by covenant, where the performance on one part meriteth the performance of the other part and falls under justice commutative, not distributive, is not due by justice, but is rewarded of grace only. And therefore this distinction, in the sense wherein it useth to be expounded, is not right. To speak properly, commutative justice is the justice of a contractor, that is, a performance of covenant in buying and selling, hiring and letting to hire, lending and borrowing, exchanging, bartering and other acts of contract. And distributive justice, the justice of an arbitrator, that is to say the act of defining what is just. Wherein, being trusted by them that make him arbitrator, if he perform his trust, he is said to distribute to every man his own. And this is indeed just distribution, and may be called though improperly distributive justice, but more properly equity, which also is a law of nature as shall be shown in due place. As justice dependeth on antecedent covenant, so does gratitude depend on antecedent grace, that is to say, antecedent free gift. And is the fourth law of nature, which may be conceived in this form. That a man which receiveth benefit from another of mere grace endeavor that he which giveth it have no reasonable cause to repent him of his good will. For no man giveth but with intention of good to himself, because gift is voluntary. And of all voluntary acts, the object is to every man his own good, of which, if men see they shall be frustrated, there will be no beginning of benevolence or trust, nor consequently of mutual help, nor of reconciliation of one man to another. And therefore, there are to remain still in the condition of war, which is contrary to the first and fundamental law of nature, which commandeth men to seek peace. The breach of this law is called ingratitude, and hath the same relation to grace that injustice hath to obligation by covenant. A fifth law of nature is complacence. That is to say, that every man strive to accommodate himself to the rest. For the understanding whereof, we may consider that there is in men's aptness to society, a diversity of nature, rising from their diversity of affections. Not unlike to that we see in stones brought together for building of an edifice. For as that stone which by the asperity and irregularity of figure takes more room from others than itself fills, and for hardness cannot be easily made plain, and thereby hindreth the building, is by the builders cast away as unprofitable and troublesome. So also, a man that by asperity of character will strive to retain those things which to himself are superfluous, and to others necessary, and for the stubbornness of his passions cannot be corrected, is to be left or cast out of society as cumbersome thereunto. For seeing every man, not only by right, but also by necessity of nature, is supposed to endeavor all he can to obtain that which is necessary for his conservation. He that shall oppose himself against it for things superfluous is guilty of the law that thereupon is to follow, and therefore doth that which is contrary to the fundamental law of nature which commandeth to seek peace. The observers of this law may be called sociable. The Latins call them commodi. The contrary, stubborn, insatiable, forward, intractable. A sixth law of nature is this, that upon caution of the future time, a man ought to pardon the offenses past of them that, repenting, desire it. For pardon is nothing but granting of peace, which though granted to them that preserve in their hostility, be not peace but fear, yet not granted to them that give caution of the future time is sign of an aversion to peace, and therefore contrary to the law of nature. A seventh is that in past revenges, that is, retribution of evil for evil, men look not at the greatness of the evil past but the greatness of the good to follow, whereby we are forbidden to inflict punishment with any other design than for correction of the offender, or direction of others. For this law is consequent to the next before it, that commandeth pardon upon security of the future time. Besides, revenge without respect to the example and profit to come is a triumph or glorying in the hurt of another. Tending to no end, for the end is always somewhat to come, and glorying to no end is vain glory, and contrary to reason. And to hurt without reason tendeth to the introduction of war, which is against the law of nature, and is commonly styled by the name of cruelty. And because all signs of hatred or contempt provoke to fight, in so much as most men choose rather to hazard their life than not to be revenged, we may in the eighth place for a law of nature set down this precept, that no man by deed, word, countenance, or gesture declare hatred or contempt of another. The breach of which law is commonly called contumally. The question who is the better man has no place in the condition of mere nature, where, as has been shown before, all men are equal. The inequality that now is has been introduced by the law's civil. I know that Aristotle, in the first book of his politics, for a foundation of his doctrine, makeeth men by nature some more worthy to command, meaning the wiser sort, such as he thought himself to be for his philosophy, others to serve, meaning those that had strong bodies, but were not philosophers as he. As master and servant, we're not introduced by consent of men, but by difference of wit, which is not only against reason, but also against experience. For there are very few so foolish that had not rather grinned themselves than be governed by others. Nor, when the wise, in their own conceit, contend by force with them who distrust their own wisdom, do they always, or often, or almost at any time, get the victory. If nature therefore have made men equal, that equality is to be acknowledged, or if nature have made men unequal, yet, because men that think themselves equal will not enter into conditions of peace, but upon equal terms, such equality must be admitted. And therefore, for the ninth law of nature, I put this, that every man acknowledge another for his equal by nature. The breach of this precept is pride. On this law dependedeth another, that at the entrance into conditions of peace, no man required to reserve to himself any right which he is not content should be reserved to everyone of the rest. As it is necessary for all men that seek peace to lay down certain rights of nature, that is to say, not to have liberty to do all they list, so it is necessary for man's life to retain some, as right to govern their own bodies, enjoy air, water, motion, ways to go from place to place, and all things else without which a man cannot live or not live well. If, in this case, at the making of peace, men require for themselves that which they would not have to be granted to others, they do contrary to the precedent law that commandeth the acknowledgement of natural equality, and therefore also against the law of nature. The observers of this law are those we call modest, and the breakers arrogant men. The Greeks call the violation of this law pleonexia, that is a desire of more than their share. Also, if a man be trusted to judge between man and man, it is a precept of the law of nature that he deal equally between them, for without that the controversies of men cannot be determined but by war. He therefore that is partial in judgment doth what in him lies to determine from the use of judges and arbitrators, and consequently against the fundamental law of nature, is the cause of war. The observance of this law from the equal distribution to each man of that which in reason belonged to him is called equity, and as I have said before, distributive justice. The violation, exception of persons, prosopolepsia. And from this, follow with another law, that such things as cannot be divided be enjoyed in common, if it can be, and if the quantity of a thing permit, without stint. Otherwise, proportionably to the number of them that have right, for otherwise the distribution is unequal and contrary to equity. But some things there be that can neither be divided nor enjoyed in common. Then the law of nature which prescribes equity requires that the entire right, or else making the use alternate, the first possession, be determined by lot. For equal distribution is of the law of nature, and other means of equal distribution cannot be imagined. Of lots, there be two sorts, arbitrary and natural. Arbitrary is that which is agreed on by the competitors. Natural is either primogeniture, which the Greek calls clarinomia, which signifies given by lot, or first seizure. And therefore those things which cannot be enjoyed in common, nor divided, ought to be a judged to the first possessor, and in some cases to the first born as acquired by lot. It is also a law of nature that all men that mediate peace be allowed safe conduct. For the law that commandeth peace as the end, commandeth intercession as the means. And to intercession, the means is safe conduct. And because though men be never so willing to observe these laws, there may nevertheless arise questions concerning a man's action. First, whether it were done or not done. Secondly, if done, whether against the law or not against the law, the former whereof is called a question of fact, the latter a question of right. Therefore, unless the parties to the question covenant mutually to stand to the sentence of another, they are as far from peace as ever. This other to whose sentence they submit is called an arbitrator. And therefore it is of the law of nature that they that are at controversy submit their right to the judgment of an arbitrator.  And if he were never so fit yet equity allowing to each party equal benefit, if one be admitted to be judge, the other is to be admitted also. And so the controversy that is the cause of war remains against the law of nature. For the same reason no man in any cause ought to be received for arbitrator to whom greater profit or honor or pleasure apparently arises out of the victory of one party than of the other. For he have taken though an unavoidable bribe yet a bribe and no man can be obliged to trust him. And thus also the controversy and the condition of war remaineth contrary to the law of nature. And in a controversy of fact the judge being to give no more credit to one than to the other, if there be no other arguments, must give credit to a third or to a third and fourth or more, for else the question is undecided and left to force, contrary to the law of nature. These are the laws of nature dictating peace for a means of the conservation of men in multitudes and which only concern the doctrine of civil society. There be other things tending to the destruction of particular men as drunkenness and all other parts of intemperance, which may therefore also be reckoned among those things which the law of nature hath forbidden, but are not necessary to be mentioned nor are pertinent enough to this place. And though this may seem to subtle a deduction of the laws of nature to be taken notice of by all men, whereof the most part are too busy in getting food and the rest too negligent to understand, yet to leave all men inexcusable, they have been contracted to one easy sum, intelligible even to the meanest capacity, and that is, do not that to another which thou wouldst not have done to thyself, which showeth him that he has no more to do in learning the laws of nature, but when weighing the actions of other men with his own they seem too heavy to put them into the other part of the balance, and his own into their place, that his own passions and self-love may add nothing to the weight, and then there is none of these laws of nature that will not appear unto him very reasonable. The laws of nature oblige in foro interno, that is to say they bind to a desire they should take place, but in foro externo, that is to the putting them in act, not always. For he that should be modest and tractable and perform all he promises in such time and place where no man else should do so, should but make himself a prey to others, and procure his own certain ruin, contrary to the ground of all laws of nature which tend to nature's preservation, and again, he that having sufficient security that others shall observe the same laws towards him observes them not himself, seeketh not peace, but war, and consequently the destruction of his nature by violence. And whatsoever laws bind in foro interno may be broken, not only by effect contrary to the law, but also by effect according to it, in case a man think at contrary. For though his action in this case be according to the law, yet his purpose was against the law, which where the obligation is in foro interno is a breach. The laws of nature are immutable and eternal, for injustice in gratitude, arrogance, pride, inequity, exception of persons, and the rest can never be made lawful, for it can never be that war shall preserve life and peace destroy it. The same laws, because they oblige only to a desire and endeavor, mean an unfaigned and constant endeavor, are easy to be observed. For in that they require nothing but endeavor, he that endeavoreth their performance fulfilleth them, and he that fulfilleth the law is just. And the science of them is the true and only moral philosophy, for moral philosophy is nothing else but the science of what is good and evil in the conversation and society of mankind. Good and evil are names that signify our appetites and aversions, which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men are different, and diverse men differ not only in their judgment on the senses of what is pleasant and unpleasant to the taste, smell, hearing, touch, and sight, but also of what is conformable or disagreeable to reason in the actions of common life. Nay, the same man in diverse times differs from himself, and one time praeseth, that is, calleth good, what another time he dispraeseth and calleth evil, from whence arise disputes, controversies, and at last war. And therefore, so long as a man is in the condition of mere nature, which is a condition of war, private appetite is the measure of good and evil, and consequently all men agree on this, that peace is good, and therefore also the way or means of peace, which, as I have shown before, are justice, gratitude, modesty, equity, mercy, and the rest of the laws of nature are good, that is to say, moral virtues, and their contrary vices, evil. Now, the science of virtue and vice is moral philosophy, and therefore the true doctrine of the laws of nature is the true moral philosophy, but the writers of moral philosophy, though they acknowledge the same virtues and vices, yet not seeing wherein consisted their goodness, nor that they come to be praised as the means of peaceable, sociable, and comfortable living, place them in a mediocrity of passions, as if not the cause, but the degree of daring made fortitude, or not the cause, but the quantity of a gift made liberality. These dictates of reason men used to call by the name of laws, but improperly, for they are but conclusions or theorems concerning what conducive to the conservation and defense of themselves, whereas law, properly, is the word of him that by right hath command over others, but yet if we consider the same theorems as delivered in the word of God, that by right commandeth all things, then are they properly called laws. End of chapter 15. This recording is in the public domain. Chapter 16 of Leviathan. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes. Chapter 16 of persons, authors, and things personated. A person is he whose words or actions are considered either as his own, or as representing the words or actions of another man, or of any other thing, to whom they are attributed, whether truly or by fiction. When they are considered as his own, then is he called a natural person, and when they are considered as representing the words and actions of another, then he is a feigned or artificial person. The word person is Latin, instead whereof the Greeks have prosopon, which signifies the face, as persona in Latin signifies the disguise or outward appearance of a man counterfeited on the stage, and sometimes more particularly that part of it which disguises the face as a mask or visard, and from the stage have been translated to any representative of speech and action, as well in tribunals as theaters, so that a person is the same that an actor is, both on the stage and in common conversation, and to personate is to act or represent himself or another, and he that acteth another is said to bear his person, or act in his name, in which sense Cicero uses it, where he says Uno Sustinio Tres Personas Me y Adversari y Ad Yutikis I bear three persons, my own, my adversaries, and the judges, and is called in diverse occasions, diversely, as a representer or representative, a lieutenant, a vicar, an attorney, a deputy, a procurator, an actor, and the like. Of persons artificial, some have their words and actions owned by those whom they represent, and then the person is the actor, and he that owneth his words and actions is the author, in which case the actor acteth by authority. For that which in speaking of goods and possessions is called an owner, and in Latin dominus, in Greek kurios, speaking of actions is called author, and as the right of possession is called dominion, so the right of doing any action is called authority, so that by authority is always understood a right of doing any act, and done by authority, done by commission or license, from him whose right it is. From hence it followeth that when the actor maketh a covenant by authority, he bindeth thereby the author no less than if he had made it himself, and no less subjecteth him to all the consequences of the same. And therefore, all that hath been said formerly, chapter 14, of the nature of covenants between man and man in their natural capacity, is true also when they are made by their actors, representers, or procurators, that have authority from them, so far forth as is in their commission, but no further. And therefore he that maketh a covenant with the actor or representer, not knowing the authority he hath, doth it at his own peril. For no man is obliged by a covenant whereof he is not author, nor consequently, by a covenant made against or beside the authority he gave. When the actor doth anything against the law of nature by command of the author, if he be obliged by former covenant to obey him, not he, but the author, breaketh the law of nature. For though the action be against the law of nature, yet it is not his, but, contrarily, to refuse to do it is against the law of nature that forbiddeth breach of covenant. And he that maketh a covenant with the author, by mediation of the actor, not knowing what authority he hath, but only takes his word, in case such authority be not made manifest unto him upon demand, is no longer obliged. For the covenant made with the author is not valid without his counter-assurance. But if he that so covenanteth knew beforehand he was to expect no other assurance than the actor's word, then is the covenant valid, because the actor in this case maketh himself the author. And therefore, as when the authority is evident, the covenant obligeth the author not the actor. So, when the authority is feigned, it obligeth the actor only, there being no author, but himself. There are few things that are incapable of being represented by fiction. Inanimate things as a church, a hospital, a bridge, may be personated by a rector, master, or overseer. But things inanimate cannot be authors, nor therefore give authority to their actors. Yet, the actors may have authority to procure their maintenance, given them by those that are owners or governors of those things. And therefore, such things cannot be personated before there be some state of civil government. Likewise, children, fools, and madmen that have no use of reason may be personated by guardians or curators, but can be no authors during that time of any action done by them longer than, when they shall recover the use of reason, they shall judge the same reasonable. Yet, during the folly, he that hath right of governing them may give authority to the guardian. But this again has no place but in a state civil, because before such a state there is no dominion of persons. An idol or mere figment of the brain may be personated, as were the gods of the heathen, which by such officers as the state appointed were personated and held possessions and other goods and rights, which men from time to time dedicated and consecrated unto them. But idols cannot be authors, for an idol is nothing. The authority proceeded from the state, and therefore, before introduction of civil government, the gods of the heathen could not be personated. The true god may be personated, as he was. First, Moses, who governed the Israelites, that were not his, but God's people, not in his own name with Hock di Kitt Moses, but in God's name with Hock di Kitt Dominus. Secondly, by the Son of Man, his own son, our blessed savior Jesus Christ, that came to reduce the Jews and induce all nations into the kingdom of his father, not as of himself, but as sent from his father. And thirdly, by the Holy Ghost, or Comforter, speaking and working in the apostles, which Holy Ghost was a Comforter that came not of himself, but was sent and proceeded from them both. A multitude of men are made one person when they are by one man, or one person, represented, so that it be done with the consent of everyone of that multitude in particular. For it is the unity of the representer, not the unity of the represented, that maketh the person one. And it is the representer that beareth the person, and but one person, and unity cannot otherwise be understood in multitude. And because the multitude naturally is not one, but many, that cannot be understood for one, but many others, of everything their representative sayeth or doeth in their name, every man giving their common representer authority from himself in particular, and owning all the actions the representer doth, in case they give him authority without stint. Otherwise, when they limit him in what and how far he shall represent them, none of them owneth more than they gave him commission to act. And if the representative consists of many men, the voice of the greater number must be considered as the voice of them all. For if the lesser number pronounced, for example, in the affirmative, and the greater in the negative, there will be negatives more than enough to destroy the affirmatives, and thereby the excess of negatives, standing uncontradicted, are the only voice the representative hath. And a representative of even numbers, especially when the number is not great, whereby the contradictory voices are oftentimes equal, is therefore oftentimes mute, and incapable of action. Yet in some cases, contradictory voices equal in number may determine a question, as in condemning or absolving, equality of votes even in that they condemn not, do absolve. But not on the contrary condemn in that they absolve not, for when a cause is heard, not to condemn is to absolve. But on the contrary, to say that not absolving is condemning is not true. The like it is in deliberation of executing presently, or deferring till another time, for when the voices are equal, the not-decreying execution is a decree of dilation. Or if the number be odd, as three or more men or assemblies, where everyone has by a negative voice authority to take away the effect of all the affirmative voices of the rest, this number is no representative. By the diversity of opinions and interests of men it becomes oftentimes, and in cases of the greatest consequence, a mute person and unappet, as for many things else, so for the government of a multitude, especially in time of war. Of authors there be two sorts. The first simply so-called, which I have before defined to be him that oneth the action of another simply. The second is he that oneth an action or covenant of another conditionally. That is to say, he undertaketh to do it if the other doth it not, at or before a certain time. And these authors conditional are generally called sureties. In Latin, fide yosores and sponsores, and particularly for debt, predes, and for appearance before a judge or magistrate, wathes, and chapter 16, and first part of man. This recording is in the public domain. Chapter 17 of Leviathan. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Anna Simon. Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes. The second part of Commonwealth. Chapter 17 of the causes, generation, and definition of a Commonwealth. The final cause and or design of man who'd naturally love liberty and dominion over others, in the introduction of that restrained upon themselves in which we see them live in Commonwealth, is the foresight of their own preservation and of a more contented life thereby. That is to say of getting themselves out from that miserable condition of war, which is necessarily consequent, as has been shown, to the natural passions of man when there is no visible power to keep them in awe, and tie them by fear of punishment to the performance of their covenants, and observation of those laws of nature set down in the 14th and 15th chapters. For the laws of nature, as justice, equity, modesty, mercy, and in some doing to others as we would be done to, of themselves, without the terror of some power to cause them to be observed, are contrary to our natural passions that carries to partiality, pride, revenge, and alike, and covenants without the sword, are but words, and of no strength to secure a man at all. Therefore, notwithstanding the laws of nature, which everyone had then kept when he has the will to keep them, when he can do it safely, if there be no power erected, or not great enough for our security, every man will and may lawfully rely on his own strength and art for caution against all other men. And in all places, where men have lived by small families, to rob and spoil one another has been a trade, and so far from being reputed against the law of nature, that the greater spoils they gained, the greater was their honor. And men observed no other laws therein, but the laws of honor. That is to abstain from cruelty, leaving to men their lives and instruments of husbandry. And as small families did then, so now do cities and kingdoms, which are but greater families, for their own security, enlarge their dominions upon all pretenses of danger and fear of invasion, or assistance that may be given to invaders, endeavor as much as they can to subdue or weaken their neighbors by open force and secret odds, for want of other caution justly, and are remembered for it in after ages with honor. Nor is it the joining together of a small number of men that gives them this security, because in small numbers, small additions on the one side or the other make the advantage of strength so great as it's sufficient to carry the victory, and therefore gives encouragement to an invasion. The multitude sufficient to confide in for our security is not determined by any certain number, but by comparison with the enemy we fear, and is then sufficient when the art of the enemy is not of so visible and conspicuous moment to determine the event of war as to move him to attempt. And be there never so great a multitude, yet if their actions be directed according to their particular judgments and particular appetites, they can expect thereby no defense, no protection, neither against a common enemy nor against the injuries of one another. For being distracted in opinions concerning the best use and application of their strength, they do not help but hinder one another, and reduce their strength by mutual opposition to nothing, whereby they are easily not only subdued by a very few that agree together, but also when there is no common enemy, they make war upon each other for their particular interests. For if we could suppose a great multitude of men to consent in the observation of justice and other laws of nature without a common power to keep them all in awe, we might as well suppose all mankind to do the same, and then there neither would be nor need to be any civil government or commonwealth at all, because there would be peace without subjection. Nor is it enough for the security which men desire should last all the time of their life, that they be governed and directed by one judgment for a limited time, as in one battle or one war. For though they obtain a victory by their unanimous endeavor against a foreign enemy, yet afterwards, when either they have no common enemy, or he that by one part is held for an enemy is by another part held for a friend, they must needs by the difference of their interests dissolve and fall again into a war amongst themselves. It is true that certain living creatures as bees and ants live socially one with another, which are therefore by Aristotle numbered amongst political creatures, and yet have no other direction than their particular judgments and appetites, nor speech whereby one of them can signify to another what he thinks expedient for the common benefit, and therefore some men may perhaps desire to know why mankind cannot do the same, to which I answer. First, that men are continually in competition for honor and dignity which these creatures are not, and consequently amongst men there arises on that ground envy and hatred and finally war, but amongst these not so. Secondly, that amongst these creatures the common good differ not from the private, and being by nature inclined to their private they procure thereby the common benefit, but men whose joy consisted in comparing himself with other men can relish nothing but what is eminent. Thirdly, that these creatures having not as men the use of reason do not see nor think they see any fault in the administration of their common business, whereas amongst men there are very many that think themselves wiser and able to govern the public better than the rest, and these strive to reform and innovate, one this way another that way, and thereby bring it into distraction and civil war. Fourthly, that these creatures, though they have some use of voice in making known to one another their desires and other affections, yet they want that art of words by which some men can represent to others that which is good in the likeness of evil, and evil in the likeness of good, and augment or diminish the apparent greatness of good and evil, discontenting men and troubling their peace and their pleasure. Fifthly, irrational creatures cannot distinguish between injury and damage, and therefore as long as they be at ease they are not offended with their fellows, whereas man is then most troublesome when he's most at ease, for then it is that he loves to show his wisdom and control the actions of them that govern the commonwealth. Lastly, the agreement of these creatures is natural, that of man is by covenant only, which is artificial, and therefore it is no wonder if there be somewhat else required besides covenant to make their agreement constant and lasting, which is a common power to keep them in awe and to direct their attention to the common benefit. The only way to erect such a common power is maybe able to defend them from the invasion of foreigners and the injuries of one another, and thereby to secure them in such sort as that by their own industry and by the fruits of the earth they may nourish themselves and live contentedly, is to confer all their power and strength upon one man, or upon one assembly of men, that may reduce all their wills by plurality of voices and to one will, which is as much as to say to appoint one man, or assembly of man, to bear their person, and everyone to own and acknowledge himself to be author of whatsoever he that so beareth their person shall act or cause to be acted in those things which concern the common peace and safety, and therein to submit their wills everyone to his will, and their judgments to his judgment. This is more than consent or concord, it is a real unity of them all in one and the same person, made by covenant of every man with every man, in such manner as if every man should say to every man, I authorize and give up my right of governing myself to this man, or to this assembly of man, on this condition, that thou give up thy right to him, and authorize all his actions in like manner. This done, the multitude so united in one person is called a Commonwealth, in Latin, Civitas. This is a generation of that great Leviathan, or Rada, to speak more reverently of that mortal God to which we owe, under the immortal God, our peace and defense. For by this authority, given him by every particular man in the Commonwealth, he had to use of so much power and strength conferred on him that by terror thereof, he is enabled to form the wills of them all to peace at home, and mutual aid against their enemies abroad. And in him consisted the essence of the Commonwealth, which, to define it, is one person of whose acts a great multitude by mutual governance, one with another, have made themselves everyone the author. To the end, he may use the strength and means of them all as he shall think expedient for their peace and common defense. And he that carried this person is called sovereign, and set to have sovereign power, and everyone besides his subject. The attaining to this sovereign power is by two ways, one by natural force, as when a man maketh his children submit themselves and their children to his government as being able to destroy them if they refuse, or by war substitute his enemies to his will, giving them their lives on that condition. The other is when men agree amongst themselves to submit to some man or assembly of men voluntarily