8 of the Virtues commonly called intellectual and their contrary defects. Virtue generally, in all sorts of subjects, is somewhat that is valued for eminence and consisteth in comparison. For if all things were equally in all men, nothing would be prized. And by virtue's intellectual are always understood such abilities of the mind as men praise, value, and desire should be in themselves, and go commonly under the name of a good wit, though the same word wit be used also to distinguish one certain ability from the rest. These virtues are of two sorts, natural and acquired. By natural I mean not that which a man hath from his birth, for that is nothing else but sense, wherein men differ so little one from another, and from brute beasts, as it is not to be reckoned amongst virtues. But I mean that wit which is gotten by use only and experience, without method, culture, or instruction. This natural wit consisteth principally in two things, celerity of imagining, that is, swift succession of one thought to another, and steady direction to some approved end. On the contrary, a slow imagination maketh that defect or fall to the mind, which is commonly called dullness, stupidity, and sometimes by other names that signify slowness of motion or difficulty to be moved. And this difference of quickness is caused by the difference of men's passions, that love and dislike, some one thing, some another. And therefore some men's thoughts run one way, some another, and are held to, observed differently, the things that pass through their imagination. And whereas in this succession of men's thoughts there is nothing to observe in the things they think on, but either in what they be like one another, or in what they be unlike, or what they serve for, or how they serve to such a purpose, those that observe their similitudes, in case they be such as are but rarely observed by others, are said to have a good wit, by which, in this occasion, is meant a good fancy. But they that observe their differences and dissimilitudes, which is called distinguishing and discerning, and judging between thing and thing, in case such discerning be not easy, are said to have a good judgment. And particularly in matter of conversation and business, wherein times, places, and persons are to be discerned, this virtue is called discretion. The former, that is, fancy, without the help of judgment, is not commended as a virtue, but the latter, which is judgment and discretion, is commended for itself, without the help of fancy. Besides the discretion of times, places, and persons necessary to a good fancy, there is required also an often application of his thoughts to their end, that is to say, to some use to be made of them. This done, he that hath this virtue, will be easily fitted with similitudes that will please, not only by illustration of his discourse, and adorning it with new and apt metaphors, but also by the rarity of their invention. But without steadiness and direction to some end, great fancy is one kind of madness, such as they have that, entering into any discourse, are snatched from their purpose by everything that comes in their thought, into so many and so long digressions and parentheses that they utterly lose themselves. Which kind of folly I know no particular name for, but the cause of it is sometimes want of experience, whereby that seemeth to a man new and rare which doth not so to others. Sometimes pusillanimity, by which that seems great to him which other men think a trifle, and whatsoever is new or great, and therefore thought fit to be told, withdraws a man by degrees from the intended way of his discourse. In a good poem, whether it be epic or dramatic, as also in sonnets, epigrams, and other pieces, both judgment and fancy are required. But the fancy must be more eminent, because they please for the extravagancy, but ought not to displease by indiscretion. In a good history, the judgment must be eminent, because the goodness consistseth in the choice of the method, in the truth, and in the choice of the actions, that are most profitable to be known. Fancy has no place, but only in adorning the style. In orations of praise, and in invectives, the fancy is predominant, because the design is not truth, but to honor or dishonor, which is done by noble or by vile comparisons. The judgment does but suggest what circumstances make an action laudable or culpable. In hortatives and pleadings, as truth or disguise serveth best to the design in hand, so is the judgment or the fancy most required. In demonstration, in counsel, and all rigorous search of truth sometimes does all, except sometimes the understanding have need to be opened by some apt similitude, and then there is so much use of fancy. But for metaphors they are in this case utterly excluded. For seeing they openly profess deceit to admit them into counsel or reasoning or manifest folly. And in any discourse whatsoever, if the defective discretion be apparent, how extravagant so ever the fancy be, the whole discourse will be taken for a sign of want of wit. And so will it never when the discretion is manifest, though the fancy be never so ordinary. The secret thoughts of a man run over all things holy, profane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame or blame. Which verbal discourse cannot do farther than the judgment shall approve of the time, place, and persons. An anatomist or physician may speak or write his judgment of unclean things because it is not to please but profit. But for another man to write his extravagant and pleasant fancies of the same is as if a man, for being tumbled into the dirt, should come and present himself before good company. And it is the want of discretion that makes the difference. Again, in professed remissness of mind and familiar company, a man may play with the sounds and equivocal significations of words, and that many times with the encounters of extraordinary fancy. But in a sermon, or in public, or before persons unknown, or whom we ought to reverence, there is no jingling of words that will not be accounted folly, and the difference is only in the want of discretion. So that where wit is wanting, it is not fancy that is wanting, but discretion. Judgment, therefore, without fancy is wit, but fancy without judgment not. When the thoughts of a man that has a design in hand running over a multitude of things observes how they conduce to that design, or what design they may conduce unto, if his observations be such as are not easy, or usual, this wit of his is called prudence, and dependeth on much experience and memory of the like things and their consequences here to fore. In which there is not so much difference of men as there is in their fancies and judgments, because the experience of men equal in age is not much unequal as to the quantity, but lies in different occasions, everyone having his private designs. The govern well, a family, and a kingdom are not different degrees of prudence, but different sorts of business. No more than to draw a picture in little, or as great, or greater than the life, are different degrees of art. A plain husband man is more prudent in affairs of his own house, than a privy counselor in the affairs of another man. To prudence, if you add the use of unjust or dishonest means, such as usually are prompted to men by fear or want, you have that crooked wisdom which is called craft, which is a sign of pusillanimity. For magnanimity is contempt of unjust or dishonest helps. And that which the Latins call versucia, translated into English, shifting, and is a putting off of a present danger or in commodity by engaging into a greater, as when a man robs one to pay another, is but a shorter-sided craft, called versucia, from versura, which signifies taking money at usury for the present payment of interest. As for acquired wit, I mean acquired by method and instruction, there is none but reason, which is grounded on the right use of speech, and produces the sciences. But of reason and science I have already spoken in the fifth and sixth chapters. The causes of this difference of wits are in the passions, and the difference of passions precedes partly from the different constitution of the body, and partly from different education. For if the difference preceded from the temper of the brain, and the organs of sense, either exterior or interior, there would be no less difference of men in their sight, hearing, or other senses than in their fancies and discretions. It precedes, therefore, from the passions, which are different not only from the difference of men's complexions, but also from their difference of customs and education. The passions that most of all cause the differences of wit are principally the more or less desire of power, of riches, of knowledge, and of honor. All which may be reduced to the first, that is, desire of power, for riches, knowledge, and honor, are but several sorts of power. And, therefore, a man who has no great passion for any of these things, but is as men term it indifferent, though he may be so far a good man as to be free from giving offense, yet he cannot possibly have either a great fancy or much judgment. For the thoughts are to the desires as scouts and spies to range abroad and find the way to the things desired, all steadiness of the mind's motion, and all quickness of the same proceeding from thence. For us to have no desire is to be dead, so to have weak passions is dullness, and to have passions indifferent for everything, giddiness, and distraction, and to have stronger and more vehement passions for anything that is ordinarily seen in others is that which men call madness. Whereof there be almost as many kinds as of the passions themselves? Sometimes the extraordinary and extravagant passion precedeth from the evil constitution of the organs of the body, or harm done them, and sometimes the hurt and indisposition of the organs is caused by the vehemence or long continuance of the passion, but in both cases the madness is of one and the same nature. The passion whose violence or continuance maketh madness is either great vanglory, which is commonly called pride and self-conceit, or great dejection of mind. Pride subjecteth a man to anger the excess whereof is the madness called rage and fury, and thus it comes to pass that excessive desire of revenge, when it becomes habitual, hurteth the organs, and becomes rage, that excessive love with jealousy becomes also rage, excessive opinion of a man's own self, for divine inspiration, for wisdom, learning, form, and the like, becomes distraction and giddiness, the same joined with envy, rage, vehement opinion of the truth of anything, contradicted by others, rage. Dejection subjects a man to causeless fears, which is a madness commonly called melancholy, apparent also in diverse manners, as in haunting of solitudes and graves, in superstitious behavior, and in fearing some one, some another particular thing. In some, all passions that produce strange and unusual behavior are called by the general name of madness. But of the several kinds of madness, he that would take the pains might enroll a legion, and if the excesses be madness, there is no doubt that the passions themselves, when they tend to evil, are degrees of the same. For example, though the effect of folly, and them that are possessed of an opinion of being inspired, be not visible always in one man by any very extravagant action that proceeded from such passion, yet when many of them conspire together, the rage of the whole multitude is visible enough. For what argument of madness can there be greater than to clamor, strike, and throw stones at our best friends?  And if this be madness in the multitude, it is the same in every particular man. For as in the midst of the sea, though a man perceived no sound of that part of the water next to him, yet he is well assured that part contributes as much to the roaring of the sea as any other part of the same quantity. So also, though we perceive no great unquietness in one or two men, yet we may be well assured that their singular passions are parts of the seditious roaring of a troubled nation. And if there were nothing else to berade their madness, yet that very arrogating such inspiration to themselves is argument enough. If some man in Bedlam should entertain you with sober discourse, and you desire in taking leave to know what he were that you might another time requite his civility, and he should tell you he were God the Father, I think you need expect no extravagant action for argument of his madness. This opinion of inspiration, called commonly private spirit, begins very often from some lucky finding of an error generally held by others, and not knowing, or not remembering, by what conduct of reason they came to so sing it or a truth as they think it, though it be many times untruth they lied on, they presently admire themselves as being in the special grace of God Almighty, who hath revealed the same to them supernaturally by his spirit. Again, that madness is nothing else, but too much appearing passion may be gathered out of the effects of wine, which are the same with those of the evil disposition of the organs. For the variety of behavior in men that have drunk too much is the same with that of madmen. Some of them raging, others loving, others laughing, all extravagantly, but according to their several domineering passions. For the effect of the wine does but remove dissimulation, and take from them the sight of the deformity of their passions. For, I believe, the most sober men, when they walk alone without care and employment of the mind, would be unwilling the vanity and extravagance of their thoughts at that time should be publicly seen, which is a confession that passions unguided are for the most part mere madness. The opinions of the world, both in ancient and later ages concerning the cause of madness, have been two. Some deriving them from the passions, some from demons or spirits, either good or bad, which they thought might enter into a man possess him and move his organs in such strange and uncouth manner as madmen used to do. The former sort, therefore, called such men madmen, but the latter called them sometimes demoniacs, that is, possessed with spirits, sometimes in argumenti, that is, agitated or moved with spirits, and now in Italy they are called not only pazzi, madmen, but also spiritati, men possessed. There was once a great conflux of people in Abdera, a city of the Greeks, at the acting of the tragedy of Andromeda, upon an extreme hot day, whereupon a great many of the spectators, falling into fevers, had this accident from the heat and from the tragedy together that they did nothing but pronounce iambics with the names of Perseus and Andromeda, which, together with a fever, was cured by the coming on of winter, and this madness was thought to proceed from the passion imprinted by the tragedy. Likewise there reigned a fit of madness in another Grecian city, which seized only the young maidens, and caused many of them to hang themselves. This was by most then thought an act of the devil. But one that suspected that contempt of life in them might proceed from some passion of the mind, and supposing they did not contempt also their honor, gave counsel to the magistrates to strip such as so hang themselves, and let them hang out naked. This, the story says, cured that madness. But on the other side, the same Grecians that often ascribe madness to the operation of the humanities, or furies, and sometimes of Cirrus, Phoebus, and other gods, so much did men attribute to phantasms as to think them aerial living bodies, and generally to call them spirits. And as the Romans in this held the same opinion with the Greeks, so also did the Jews, for they called madmen prophets, or according as they thought the spirits good or bad, demoniacs, and some of them called both prophets and demoniacs madmen, and some called the same man both demoniac and madman. But for the Gentiles it is no wonder, because diseases and health, vices and virtues, and many natural accidents were with them termed and worshipped as demons, so that a man was to understand by demon as well sometimes an agu as a devil. But for the Jews to have such opinion is somewhat strange, for neither Moses nor Abraham pretended to prophesy by possession of a spirit, but from the voice of God, or by a vision or dream. Nor is there anything in his law, moral or ceremonial, by which they were taught there was any such enthusiasm or any possession. When God is said to take from the spirit that was in Moses and give to the seventy elders, the spirit of God, taking it for the substance of God, is not divided. The scriptures by the spirit of God in man mean a man's spirit inclined to godliness. And where it is said, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom to make garments for Aaron, is not meant a spirit put into them that can make garments, but the wisdom of their own spirits and that kind of work. In the like sense, the spirit of man, when it produces unclean actions, is ordinarily called an unclean spirit, and so other spirits, though not always, yet as often as the virtue or vice, so styled, is extraordinary and eminent. Neither did the other prophets of the Old Testament pretend enthusiasm, or that God spoke in them, but to them, by voice, vision or dream, and the burden of the Lord was not possession, but command. How then could the Jews fall into this opinion of possession? I can imagine no other reason, but that which is common to all men, namely, the want of curiosity to search natural causes, and their placing felicity in the acquisition of the gross pleasures of the senses, and the things that most immediately conduce thereto. For they that see any strange and unusual ability or defect in a man's mind, unless they see with all from what cause that may probably proceed, can hardly think of natural, and if not natural, they must need stinking supernatural, and then what can it be, but that either God or the devil is in him. And hence it came to pass when our Saviour was compassed about with a multitude, those of the house doubted he was mad, and went out to hold him, but the scribe said he had Beelzebub, and that was it, by which he cast out devils, as if the greater madmen had awed the lesser. And that some said he hath the devil and is mad, whereas others, holding him for a prophet, said these are not the words of one that hath a devil. So in the Old Testament he that came to anoint Jehu was a prophet, but some of the company asked Jehu what came that madman for. So that, in some, it is manifest that whosoever behaved himself in extraordinary manner was thought by the Jews to be possessed either with a good or evil spirit, except by the Sadducees, who erred so far on the other hand as not to believe there were at all any spirits, which is very near to direct atheism, and thereby perhaps the more provoked others to term such men demoniacs rather than madmen. But why then does our Saviour proceed in the curing of them as if they were possessed, and not as if they were mad? To which I can give no other kind of answer but that which is given to those who urged the Scripture in like manner against the opinion of the motion of the earth. The Scripture was written to show unto men the kingdom of God, and to prepare their minds to become his obedient subjects, leaving the world and the philosophy thereof, to the disputation of men for the exercising of their natural reason. What of the earth's or son's motion make the day and night, or what of the exorbitant actions of men proceed from passion or from the devil, so we worship him not, it is all one as to our obedience and subjection to God Almighty, which is the thing for which the Scripture was written. As for that our Saviour speaketh to the disease as to a person, it is the usual phrase of all that cure by words only, as Christ did, and enchanters pretend to do, whether they speak to a devil or not. For is not Christ also said to have rebuked the winds? Is not he said also to rebuke a fever? Yet this does not argue that a fever is a devil. And whereas many of those devils are said to confess Christ, it is not necessary to interpret those places otherwise than that those madmen confessed him. And whereas our Saviour speaketh of an unclean spirit that having gone out of a man wandereth through dry places, seeking rest and finding none, and returning into the same man with seven other spirits worse than himself, it is manifestly a parable, alluding to a man that after a little endeavour to quit his lusts, is vanquished by the strength of them, and becomes seven times worse than he was, so that I see nothing at all in the Scripture that requireth a belief that demoniacs were any other thing but madmen. There is yet another fault in the discourses of some men, which may also be numbered amongst the sorts of madness, namely that abuse of words or of I have spoken before in the fifth chapter by the name of absurdity. And that is when men speak such words as, put together, have in them no signification at all, but are fallen upon, by some, through misunderstanding of the words they have received and repeat by rote, by others from intention to deceive by obscurity. And this is incident to none but those that converse in questions of matters incomprehensible as the schoolmen, or in questions of abstruse philosophy. The common sort of men seldom speak insignificantly, and are therefore, by those other egregious persons, counted idiots. But to be assured their words are without anything correspondent to them in the mind, there would need some examples, which if any man require, let him take a schoolman into his hands, and see if he can translate any one chapter concerning any difficult point, as the Trinity, the deity, the nature of Christ, transubstantiation, free will, etc., into any of the modern tongues, so as to make the same intelligible, or into any tolerable Latin, such as they were acquainted with all that lived when the Latin tongue was vulgar. What is the meaning of these words? The first cause does not necessarily inflow anything into the second, by force of the essential subordination of the second causes, by which it may help it to work. They are the translation of the title of the sixth chapter of Suarez's first book of the Concourse, Motion, and Help of God. When men write whole volumes of such stuff, are they not mad, or intend to make others so? And particularly in the question of transubstantiation, where, after certain words spoken, they that say the whiteness, roundness, magnitude, quality, corruptibility, all which are incorporeal, etc., go out of the wafer into the body of our blessed Savior, do they not make those nesses, toods, and ties to be so many spirits possessing His body? For by spirits they mean always things that being incorporeal are nevertheless movable from one place to another. So that this kind of absurdity may rightly be numbered amongst the many sorts of madness, and all the time that, guided by clear thoughts of their worldly lust, they forbear disputing or writing thus but lucid intervals, and thus much of the virtues and defects intellectual. End of Chapter 8, Recording by Darren L. Slider www.logoslibrary.org Chapter 9 of Leviathan. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Karl Manchester 2007. Leviathan by Thomas Hobbs Chapter 9 of The Several Subjects of Knowledge There are of knowledge two kinds, whereof one is knowledge of fact, the other knowledge of the consequence of one affirmation to another. The former is nothing else but sense and memory, and is absolute knowledge, as when we see a fact doing, or remember it done, and this is the knowledge required in a witness. The latter is called science, and is conditional, as when we know that if the figure shown be a circle, then any straight line through the centre shall divide it into equal parts. And this is the knowledge required in a philosopher, that is to say, of him that pretends to reasoning. The register of knowledge of fact is called history, whereof there be two sorts. One called natural history, which is the history of such facts or effects of nature as have no dependence on man's will, such are the histories of metals, plants, animals, regions, and the like. The other is civil history, which is the history of the voluntary actions of men in Commonwealths. The registers of science as such books as contain the demonstrations of consequences of one affirmation to another, and a commonly called books of philosophy, whereof the sorts are many, according to the diversity of the matter, and may be divided in such manner as I have divided them in the following table. One, science, that is, knowledge of consequences, which is called also philosophy. One, consequences from accidents of bodies natural, which is called natural philosophy. One, consequences from accidents common to all bodies natural, which are quantity and motion. One, consequences from quantity and motion indeterminate, which being the principal or first foundation of philosophy is called philosophy a prima. Two, consequences from motion and quantity determined. One, consequences from quantity and motion determined by figure, by number, mathematics, geometry, arithmetic. Two, consequences from motion and quantity of bodies in special. One, consequences from motion and quantity of the great parts of the world as the earth and stars, cosmography, astronomy, geography. Two, consequences from motion of special kinds and figures of body, mechanics, doctrine of weight, science of engineers, architecture, navigation. Two, physics or consequences from qualities. One, consequences from qualities of bodies transient, such as sometimes appear, sometimes vanish. Meteorology. Two, consequences from qualities of bodies permanent. One, consequences from qualities of stars. One, consequences from the light of the stars, out of this and the motion of the sun is made the science of seeography. Two, consequences from the influence of the stars, astrology. Two, consequences of qualities from liquid bodies that fill the space between the stars, such as are the air or substance ethereal. Three, consequences from qualities of bodies terrestrial. One, consequences from parts of the earth that are without sense. One, consequences from qualities of minerals, as stones, metals etc. Two, consequences from the qualities of vegetables. Two, consequences from qualities of animals. One, consequences from the qualities of animals in general. One, consequences from vision, optics. Two, consequences from sounds, music, three 2. Consequences from the rest of the senses. 2. Consequences from qualities of men in special. 1. Consequences from passions of men, ethics. 2. Consequences from speech. 1. In magnifying, vilifying, etc. poetry. 2. In persuading rhetoric. 3. In reasoning, logic. 4. In contracting. 5. The science of just and unjust. 2. Consequences from accidents of politic bodies, which is called politics and civil philosophy. 1. Consequences from the institution of commonwealths to the rights and duties of the body politic or sovereign. 2. Consequences from the same to the duty and right of the subjects. End of Chapter 9 Chapter 10 of Leviathan This is 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 10 Of power, worth, dignity, honour and worthiness. The power of a man, to take it universally, is his present means to obtain some future apparent good, and is either original or instrumental. Natural power is the eminence of the faculties of body or mind, as extraordinary strength, form, prudence, arts, eloquence, liberality, nobility. Instrumental are those powers which, acquired by these, or by fortune, are means and instruments to acquire more, as riches, reputation, friends, and the secret working of God, which men call good luck. For the nature of power is, in this point, like to fame, increasing as it proceeds, or like the motion of heavy bodies, which, the further they go, make still the more haste. The greatest of human powers is that which is compounded of the powers of most men, united by consent in one person, natural or civil, that has the use of all their powers depending on his will, such as is the power of a commonwealth, or depending on the wills of each particular, such as is the power of a faction, or of diverse factions, leagued. Therefore, to have servants is power. To have friends is power, for they are strength united. Also, riches joined with liberality is power, because it procures friends and servants. Without liberality, not so, because in this case they defend not but expose men to envy as a prey. Reputation of power is power, because it droith with it the adherents of those that need protection. So is reputation of love of a man's country, called popularity, for the same reason. Also, what quality, so ever, may keep a man beloved or feared of many, or the reputation of such quality, is power, because it is a means to have the assistance and service of many. Good success is power, because it maketh reputation of wisdom or good fortune, which makes men either fear him or rely on him. Affability of men already in power is increase of power, because it gaineth love. Reputation of prudence in the conduct of peace or war is power, because to prudent men we commit the government of ourselves more willingly than to others. Nobility is power, not in all places, but only in those commonwealths where it has privileges, for in such privileges consisteth their power. Elegance is power, because it is seeming prudence. Form is power, because being a promise of good it recommendeth men to the favour of women and strangers. The sciences are small powers, because not eminent, and therefore not acknowledged in any man, nor are at all but in a few, and in them but of a few things. For sciences of that nature as none can understand it to be, but such as in a good measure have attained it. Arts of public use, as fortification, making of engines, and other instruments of war, because they confer to defence and victory are power, and though the true mother of them be science, namely the mathematics, yet because they are brought into the light by the hand of the Artificer, they be esteemed, the midwife passing with the vulgar for the mother, as his issue. The value or worth of a man is, as of all other things, his price. That is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his power, and therefore is not absolute, but a thing dependent on the need and judgment of another. An able conductor of soldiers is of great price in time of war present or eminent, but in peace not so. A learned and uncorrupt judge is much worth in time of peace, but not so much in war. And as in other things, so in men, not the seller, but the buyer determines the price. Therefore, let a man, as most men do, rate themselves at the highest value they can, yet their true value is no more than it is esteemed by others. The manifestation of the value we set on one another is that which is commonly called honouring and dishonouring. To value a man at a high rate is to honour him. At a low rate is to dishonour him. But high and low, in this case, is to be understood by comparison to the rate that each man seteth on himself. The public worth of a man, which is the value set on him by the Commonwealth, is that which men commonly call dignity. And this value of him by the Commonwealth is understood by offices of command, judicature, public employment, or by names and titles introduced for distinction of such value. To pray to another for aid of any kind is to honour, because a sign we have an opinion he has power to help. And the more difficult the aid is, the more is the honour. To obey is to honour, because no man obeys them who they think have no power to help or hurt them. And consequently, to disobey is to dishonour. To give great gifts to a man is to honour him, because it is buying of protection and acknowledging of power. To give little gifts is to dishonour, because it is but arms and signifies an opinion of the need of small helps. To be sedulous in promoting another's good also to flatter is to honour, as a sign we seek his protection or aid. To neglect is to dishonour. To give way or place to another in any commodity is to honour, being a confession of greater power. To arrogate is to dishonour. To show any sign of love or fear of another is honour, for both to love and to fear is to value. To condemn or less to love or fear than he expects is to dishonour, for it is undervaluing. To praise, magnify or call happy is to honour, because nothing but goodness, power and felicity is valued. To revile, mock or pity is to dishonour. To speak to another with consideration, to appear before him with decency and humility is to honour him as signs of fear to offend. To speak to him rashly, to do anything before him obscenely, slovenly, impudently is to dishonour. To believe, to trust, to rely on another is to honour him, sign of opinion of his virtue and power. To distrust or not believe is to dishonour. To harken to a man's counsel or discourse of what kind soever is to honour, as a sign we think him wise or eloquent or witty. To sleep or go forth or talk the while is to dishonour. To do those things to another which he takes for signs of honour or which the law or custom makes so is to honour, because in approving the honour done by others he acknowledges the power which others acknowledge. To refuse to do them is to dishonour. To agree in opinion is to honour as being a sign of approving his judgement and wisdom. To dissent is dishonour and an upbraiding of error, and if the dissent be in many things of folly. To imitate is to honour, for it is vehemently to approve. To imitate one's enemy is to dishonour. To honour those another honours is to honour him, as a sign of approbation of his judgement. To honour his enemies is to dishonour him. To employ in counsel or in actions of difficulty is to honour, as a sign of opinion of his wisdom or other power. To deny employment in the same cases to those that seek it is to dishonour. All these ways of honouring are natural, and as well within as without commonwealths. But in commonwealths where he or they that have the supreme authority can make whatsoever they please to stand for signs of honour there be other honours. A sovereign doth honour a subject with whatsoever title or office or employment or action that he himself will have taken for a sign of his will to honour him. The King of Persia honoured Mordecai when he appointed he should be conducted through the streets in the King'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 are 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 losses 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 pusillanimity, 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 pusillanimity. 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 gain or preferments is dishonourable. Nor does it alter the case of honour whether in 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 who 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. Scutches 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 armor or their scotchin 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 oldest pure and to the rest with some note of diversity such as the old master that is to say in Dutch the heli-alt thought fit. But when many such families joined together made a greater monarchy this duty of the herald to distinguish scotchins was made a private office apart and the issue of these lords is the great and ancient gentry which for the most part bear 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 military. Afterwards not only kings but the Commonwealth gave diverse manners of scotchins 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 by unifying 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 Dukes 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, Marches 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 Vier, Tobero and Bar that signified the same in the language of the Gauls that Vier in Latin and thence Tobero 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 Duke's, Counts, Marquis's and Barones 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 consists it 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 presuppose it 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 Livyathan This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For further information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Livyathan by Thomas Hobbes Chapter 11 of The Difference of Manners By manners I mean not here decency of behaviour 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 instant 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 the 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 endeavours to the assuring it at home by laws or abroad by wars and when that is done there succeedeth a 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 another desire of ease and sensual delight disposeth 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 disposeth to 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 in 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 disposeth 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 thereby 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 those if to counterfeit love but really secret hatred and puts a man into the estate 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 honour done to the obliger as is 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 is of aid and service mutual from whence proceedeth an emulation of who shall exceed in benefitting 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 disposes the 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 or 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 vain 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 danger or difficulty appears they look for nothing but to have their insufficiency discovered vain glorious men such as estimate their sufficiency by the flattery of other men or the fortune of some precedent action without a shored 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 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 maketh a man unact to achieve such actions as require the strength of many men at once for it weakeneth 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 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 collar from the same also it precedes 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 has been the custom to punish and that just of the impunity and that probation 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 receive from their parents and masters save 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 often 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 if 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 if 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 but 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 if men to inquire into the causes of things because the knowledge of them maketh 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 till of 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 the 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 and 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 hath 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 of their powers. In the science 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 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 than 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 forewant of observation and memory of the order consequence and dependence of the things they see man observeth how one event hath been produced by another and remembereth in them antecedents and consequence and when he cannot assure himself 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 trusteth 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 desireeth not to be in a perpetual solicitude of the time to come so that every man especially those that are over provident are in a state like that to be of Prometheus for as Prometheus which interpreted as the prudent man was bound to the hill Caucasus 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 objects 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 since 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 of the many guides 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 a 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 umbrey and thought them spirits that is thin aerial bodies and those invisible agents which they fear 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 arrive to the acknowledgement of one infinite omnipotent and eternal god choose rather to confess incomprehensible and above their understanding then 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 origins 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 event 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 Scipio 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 to 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 stated words swearing that is assuring one another of their promises by invoking them beyond that reasons suggested nothing but leaves them either to rest there or for further ceremonies to rely on those they believe to be wiser than themselves lastly concerning how these invisible powers declare to men the things which shall hereafter 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 are 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 the 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 of 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 is 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 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 leek were deified besides that they filled almost all places with spirits called demons the plains with pan and panices 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 night time 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 wits 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 prevy members by the name of Priapus who attributed their pollutions to Incubi and Succubi 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 apness 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 and ministerial gods ascribing the cause of a cundity 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, things 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 sins, speech, sex, lust, generation and this not only by mixing one with another to propagate the 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 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, Amon 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 sulfurous caverns sometimes in the leaves of the Sibyls 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 at their nativity which was called horoscopy and esteemed a part of judiciary astrology sometimes in their own hopes and fears called theomancy 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 and confederate navery sometimes in the casual flight or feeding of birds called augury sometimes in the entrails of a sacrifice beast which was horoscopy sometimes in dreams sometimes in croaking of ravens or chattering of birds sometimes in the lineaments of the face called metaposcopy or by palmistry in the lines of the hand in casual words called omina sometimes in monsters or unusual accidents as eclipses, comets, rare meteors earthquakes, inundations uncouthburs 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 mounting 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 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 more easily be received so Numa Pompilius pretended to receive the ceremony instituted amongst the Romans of Nigeria 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 they have 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 and festivals by which they were to believe the anger of the gods might be appeased and that ill-success in 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 of 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 peace of the commonwealth that the common people and their misfortunes laying 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 with 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 of 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 contradictory for both parts of a contradiction cannot possibly be true and therefore to enjoin the 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 roots believe that there is any such invisible power to be feared as see 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 of 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 reap 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 approve 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 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 it 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 3213 a golden calf for their God relapsed into the idolatry of the Egyptians from whom they have 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 bail judges to 11 so that miracles failing faith also failed again when the sons of Samuel being constituted by their father judges and 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 make a 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 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 a 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 authority as easily as it has been excluded in England for who is there that does not see to whose benefit it can do sith to have it believed that a king hath not his authority from Christ and lest 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 in his kingdom given to one of his subjects that the clergy in 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 mortify 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 hath presumed most of reformation End of Chapter 12 Chapter 13 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 13 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. Yet 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 and as to the faculties of the mind setting aside the arts grounded upon words and especially that skill of proceeding upon general and infallible rules called science which very few have and but few things as being not a native faculty born with us nor attained as prudence while we look after somewhat 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 man 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 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 and 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 again 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 hurt them in quiet is far enough to make them destroy each other to exhort a greater value from his contemporaries by damage and from others by the example so that in the nature of man we find three principal causes of quarrel first competition secondly diffidence thirdly glory the first maketh 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 persons or by reflection in their 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 but in a tract of time where 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 lath 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 subject of time no arts no letters no society and which is worst of all continual fear and danger of violent death and the life of man solitary poor nasty brutish and short it may seem strange to some man to 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 like 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 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 till 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 a 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 concordware of dependent on natural lust I have no government at all and live at this day in that brutish 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 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 in all times kings and persons of sovereign authority because of their independency 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 their 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 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 are 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 they 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 truly 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 suggesteth convenient articles of peace upon which men may be drawn to agreement these articles are they which otherwise are called the laws of nature whereof I shall speak more particularly in the two following chapters and Chapter 13 this recording is in the public domain


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