PROP. scheme, (both of a state of nature at first wherein I. there was no such thing as right or wrong, just or unjust, at all; and of these things depending afterwards, by virtue of compact, wholly and absolutely on the positive and arbitrary determination of the civil power;) falls this way entirely to the ground, by his having been forced to suppose some particular things obligatory, originally, and in their own nature. On the contrary, if the rules of right and wrong, just and unjust, have none of them any obligatory force in the state of nature, antecedent to positive compact, then, for the same reason, neither will they be of any force after the compact, so as to afford men any certain and real security; (excepting only what may arise from the compulsion of laws, and fear of punishment, which, therefore, it may well be supposed, is all that Mr Hobbes really means at the bottom.) For if there be no obligation of just and right antecedent to the compact, then whence arises the obligation of the compact itself, on which he supposes all other obligations to be founded? If, before any compact was made, it was no injustice for a man to take away the life of his neighbour, not for his own preservation, but merely to satisfy an arbitrary humour* or pleasure, and without any reason or provocation at all, how comes it to be an injustice, after he has made a compact, to break and neglect it? Or what is it that makes breaking one's word, to be a greater and more unnatural crime, than killing a man merely for no other reason but because no positive compact has been made to the contrary? So that this Ex his sequitur, injuriam nemini fieri posse, nisi ei quocum initur pactum.-De Cive, c. 3. sec. 4. [Which whole section highly deserves to be read and well considered, as containing the secret of Mr Hobbes's whole scheme.] + Itaque patet quod, si Hobbiana ratiocinatio esset valida, omnis simul legum civilium obligatio collaberetur; nec aliter fieri potest quin earum vis labefactetur ab omnibus principiis, quæ legum naturalium vim tollunt aut minuunt; quoniam his fundatur et regiminis civilis auctoritas ac securitas, et legum a civitatibus latarum vigor.-Cumberland de Leg. Nat. page 303. way also, Mr Hobbes's whole scheme is entirely de- PROP. stroyed. 4. That state, which Mr Hobbes calls the state of nature, is not in any sense a natural state; but a state of the greatest, most unnatural, and most intolerable corruption that can be imagined. For reason, which is the proper nature of man, can never (as has been before shown) lead men to any thing else than universal love and benevolence; and wars, hatred, and violence, can never arise but from extreme corruption. A man may sometimes, it is true, in his own defence, be necessitated, in compliance with the laws of nature and reason, to make war upon his fellows: But the first aggressors, who, upon Mr Hobbes's principles, (that all men* have a natural will to hurt each other, and that every one in the state of nature has a right† to do whatever he has a will to ;)—the first aggressors, I say, who, upon these principles, assault and violently spoil as many as they are superior to in strength, without any regard to equity or proportion; these can never, by any colour whatsoever, be excused from having utterly+ divested themselves of human nature, and having introduced into the world, contrary to all the laws of nature and reason, the greatest calamities, and most unnatural confusion, that mankind, by the highest abuse of their natural powers and faculties, Etiam extra regimen civile, a malis omnigenis simul consideratis tutior erit, qui actibus externis leges naturæ constantissime observabet; quam qui, juxta doctrinam Hobbianam, vi aut insidiis alios omnes conando præoccupare, securitatem sibi quæsiverit.-Id. p. 304. Voluntas lædendi omnibus inest in statu naturæ.-De Cive, c. 1. sec. 4. + In stàtu naturali, unicuique licebat facere quæcunque et in quoscunque libebat.-Ibid. sec. 10. Si nihil existimat contra naturam fieri, hominibus violandis; quid cum eo disseras, qui omnino hominem ex homine tollat?-Cic. de Offic. lib. 3. || Τάδε δε δίκαια οὐδ ̓ εἶναι τοπαράπαν φύσει. τοῖς νόμοις, ἀλλ ̓ ἐ δή τίνι φύσει.. -Φασκόντων εἶναι -γιγνόμενα τεχνῃ καὶ τις ἂν νικᾶ βιαζόμενος. ὅθεν ἀσεβ άι τε καὶ στάσεις· ὅσην λώβην ανθρώπων νέων δόμοσία πόλεσί τε καὶ ἰδίοις οἴκοις. Plato de Leg. lib. 10. I. ་ I. PROP. are capable of falling under. Mr Hobbes pretends, indeed, that one of the first and most natural princpes of human life* is a desire necessarily arising in every man's mind, of having power and domi nion over others; and that this naturally impels men to use force and violence to obtain it. But neither is it true, that men, following the dictates of reason and uncorrupted nature, desire disproportionate power and dominion over others; neither, if it was natural to desire such power, would it at all follow that it was agreeable to nature to use violent and hurtful means to obtain it. For since the only natural and good reason to desire power and dominion, (more than what is necessary for every man's self-preservation) is, that the possessor of such power may have a larger compass, and greater abilities, and opportunities of doing good, (as is evident from God's exercise of perfectly absolute power,) it is plain that no man obeying the uncorrupted dictates of nature and reason can desire to increase his power by such destructive and pernicious methods, the prevention of which is the only good reason that makes the power itself truly desirable: All violence, therefore, and war, are plainly the effects, not of natural desires, but of unnatural and extreme corruption; and this Mr Hobbes himself unwarily proves against himself by those very arguments whereby he endeavours to prove that war and contention is more natural to men than to bees or ants; for his arguments on this head are all drawn from men's using themselves (as the animals he is speaking of cannot do,) to strive about honours and dignities, till the contention grows up into hatred, seditions, and wars ;† to separate each one his private * Homines libertatis et dominii per naturam amatores.-Leviath. c. 17. Nemini dubium esse debet, quin avidius ferrentur homines natura, sua si metus abesset, ad dominationem quàm ad societatem. -De Cive, c. 1. sec. 2. + Homines inter se de honoribus et dignitatibus perpetuo contendunt, sed animalia illa [apes et formica] non item. Itaque inter homines invidia, odium, bellum, &c.-Leviath. c. 17. I. interest from the public, and value himself highly PROP. above others, upon getting and engrossing to himself more than his proportion of the things of life, to find fault with each other's management, and, through self-conceit, being in continual innovation and distractions, to impose one upon another by lies,‡ falsifying, and deceit, calling good evil, and evil good, to grow envious at the prosperity of others, or proud and domineering when themselves are in ease and plenty, and to keep up tolerable peace and agreement among themselves, merely by artificial compacts and the compulsion of laws; all which things are so far from being truly the natural effects and result of men's reason and other faculties, that, on the contrary, they are evidently some of the grossest abuses and most unnatural corruptions thereof, that any one who was arguing on the opposite side of the question could easily have chosen to have instanced in. 5. Lastly; The chief and principal argument, which is one of the main foundations of Mr Hobbes's and his followers' system, namely, that God's irresistible power is the only foundation of his dominion,** and the only measure of his right over his creatures; and, consequently, that every other being has just so Inter animalia illa bonum publicum et privatum idem est. Homini autem in bonis propriis nihil tam jucundum est, quam quod alienis sunt majora.-Ibid. + Animantia quæ rationem non habent, nullum defectum vident vel videre se putant, in adminstratione suarum rerum publicarum. Sed in multitudine hominum, plurimi sunt qui præ cæteris sapere existimantes, conantur res novare; Et diversi novatores innovant diversis modis; id quod est distractio et bellum civile.-De Cive, c. 54 sec. 5. Animantia illa verborum arte illa carent, qua homines alii aliis videri faciunt bonum malum, et malum bonum; magnum parvum; et parvum magnum.-Leviath. c. 17. || Animalia bruta, quamdiu bene sibi est, cæteris non invident: Homo autem tum maxime molestus est, quando otio opibusque maximè abundat.-Ibid. § Consensio creaturarum illarum brutarum, naturalis est; hominum pactitia tantum, id est, artificiosa.-De Cive, c. 5. § 5. **Regni divini naturalis jus derivatur ab eo, quod divine potentie resistere impossibile est Leviath. c. 31. I. PROP. much right as it has natural power, that is, that it is naturally right for every thing to do whatever it has power to do:* This argument, I say, is of all his others the most notoriously false and absurd; as may sufficiently appear, (besides what has been already said of God's other perfections being as much the measure of his right as his power is,t) from this single consideration, suppose the devil, (for when men run into extreme impious assertions, they must be answered with suitable suppositions,) suppose, I say, such a being as we conceive the devil to be, of extreme malice, cruelty, and iniquity, was indued with supreme absolute power, and made use of it only to render the world as miserable as was possible, in the most cruel, arbitrary, and unequal manner that can be imagined; would it not follow undeniably, upon Mr Hobbes's scheme, since dominion is founded on power, and power is the measure of right, and consequently absolute power gives absolute right, that such a government as this would not only be as much of necessity indeed to be submitted to, but also that it would be as just and right, and with as little reason to be complained of, as is the present government of the world in the hands of the ever-blessed and infinitely good God, whose love and goodness and tender mercy appear everywhere over all his works? Here Mr Hobbes, as an unanswerable argument in defence of his assertion, urges,|| that the only reason In regno naturali, regnandi et puniendi eos qui leges suas violant, jus Deo est a sola potentia irresistibili.-De Cive, c. 15. sec. 5. lis quorum potentiæ resisti non potest, et per consequens Deo omnipotenti, jus dominandi ab ipsa potentia derivatur.-Ibid. *Nam quoniam Deus jus ad omnia habet, et jus Dei nihil aliud est quam ipsa Dei potentia, hinc sequitur, unamquamque rem naturalem tantum juris ex natura habere, quantum potentiæ habet.-Spinoz. de Monarch. cap. 2. [See also Tractat. Theolog, politic. cap. 16.] + See Cumberland de Leg. Naturæ, locis supra citatis, See Hobbes, de Cive, c. 3. § 4. Quod si jus regnandi habeat Deus ab omnipotentia sua, manifes tum est obligationem ad præstandum ipsi obedientiam, incumbere hominibus propter imbecillitatem. [To explain which, he adds in his |