be freer than himself: but if not till anon or to-morrow, I will dine first, or sleep, or do what reason and nature calls for, as at other times." This in Gentile philosophy is the same with the discourse of St. Paul, I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed, both how to be full and how to be hungry, both to abound and suffer need.

We are in the world like men playing at tables; the chance is not in our power, but to play it is; and when it is fallen we must manage it as we can; and let nothing trouble us, but when we do a base action, or speak like a fool, or think wickedly these things God hath put into our powers; but concerning those things which are wholly in the choice of another, they cannot fall under our deliberations, and therefore neither are they fit for our passions. My fear may make me miserable, but it cannot prevent what another hath in his power and purpose and prosperities can only be enjoyed by them who fear not at all to lose them; since the amazement and passion concerning the future takes off all the pleasure of the present possession. Therefore if thou hast lost thy land, do not also lose thy constancy and if thou must die a little sooner, yet do not die impatiently. For no chance is evil to him that is content, and to a man nothing miserable, unless it be unreasonable. No man

:

can make another man to be his slave, unless he hath first enslaved himself to life and death, to pleasure or pain, to hope or fear command these passions, and you are freer than the Parthian kings.

There is nothing but hath a double handle, or at least we have two hands to apprehend it. When an enemy reproaches us, let us look on him as an impartial relator of our faults, for he will tell thee truer than thy fondest friend will; and thou mayest call them precious balms, though they break thy head, and forgive his anger, while thou makest use of the plainness of his declamation. "The ox, when he is weary, treadeth surest;" and if there be nothing else in the disgrace, but that it makes us to walk warily, and tread sure for fear of our enemies, that is better than to be flattered into pride and carelessness.

Never compare thy condition with those about thee; but to secure thy content, look upon those thousands with whom thou wouldest not, for any interest, change thy fortune and condition. A soldier must not think himself unprosperous if he be not

successful as the son of Philip, or cannot grasp a fortune as big as the Roman empire. Be content that thou art not lessened as was Pyrrhus, or if thou beest, that thou art not routed like Crassus; and when that comes to thee, it is a great prosperity that thou art not caged and made a spectacle, like Bajazet, or thy eyes were not pulled out, like Zedekiah's, or that thou wert not flayed alive, like Valentinian.1 If thou admirest the greatness of Xerxes, look also on those that digged the mountain Atho, or whose ears and noses were cut off because the Hellespont carried away the bridge. It is a fine thing (thou thinkest) to be carrried on men's shoulders; but give God thanks that thou art not forced to carry a rich fool upon thy shoulders, as those poor men do whom thou beholdest. There are but a few kings in mankind; but many thousands who are very miserable if compared to thee. However, it is a huge folly rather to grieve for the good of others than to rejoice for that good which God hath given us as our own.

And yet there is no wise or good man that would change persons or conditions entirely with any man in the world. It may be, he would have one man's wealth added to himself, or the power of a second, or the learning of a third; but still he would receive these into his own person because he loves that best, and therefore esteems it best, and therefore overvalues all that which he is, before all that which any other man in the world can be. Would any man be Dives to have his wealth, or Judas for his office, or Saul for his kingdom, or Absalom for his beauty, or Achitophel for his policy? It is likely he would wish all these, and yet he would be the same person still. For every man hath desires of his own, and objects just fitted to them, without which he cannot be, unless he were not himself. And let every man that loves himself so well as to love himself before all the world, consider if he have not something for which in the whole he values himself for more than he can value any man else. There is, therefore, no reason to take the finest feathers from all the winged nation to deck that bird that thinks already she is more valuable than any of the inhabitants of the air. Either change all or none. Cease to love yourself best, or be content with that portion of being and blessing for which you love yourself so well.

1 A slip for "Valerian," and even he was not (apocryphally) reported as flayed alive, but after his death.

OF THE LIBERTY OF SUBJECTS.

BY THOMAS HOBBES.

(From "The Leviathan.")

[THOMAS HOBBES, a great English metaphysician, was born at Malmesbury, April 5, 1588; died December 4, 1679. His works are so numerous and special, in metaphysical exposition and controversy, that only students of such subjects would find a list of them useful; the one still familiar is "The Leviathan," an analysis of society.]

THE difference of commonwealths consisteth in the difference of the sovereign, or the person representative of all and every one of the multitude. And because the sovereignty is either in one man, or in an assembly of more than one; and into that assembly either every man hath right to enter, or not every one, but certain men distinguished from the rest: it is manifest, there can be but three kinds of commonwealth. For the representative must needs be one man, or more; and if more, then it is the assembly of all, or but of a part. When the representative is one man, then is the commonwealth a Monarchy; when of all that will come together, then it is a Democracy, or popular commonwealth; when of a part only, then it is called an Aristocracy. Other kind of commonwealth there can be none; for either one, or more, or All, must have the sovereign power (which I have shown to be indivisible)

entire.

There be other names of government, in the histories and books of policy: Tyranny and Oligarchy; but they are not the names of other forms of government, but of the same forms misliked. For they that are discontented under Monarchy call it Tyranny; and they that are displeased with Aristocracy call it Oligarchy; so also they which find themselves grieved under a Democracy, call it Anarchy (which signifies want of government). And yet I think no man believes that want of government is any new kind of government; nor by the same reason, ought they to believe that the government is of one kind when they like it, and another when they mislike it, or are oppressed by the governors. Liberty, or "freedom," signifieth, properly, the absence of opposition; by "opposition," I mean external impediments of motion; and may be applied no less to irrational and inanimate

creatures than to rational. For whatsoever is so tied, or environed, as it cannot move but within a certain space, which space is determined by the opposition of some external body, we say it hath not liberty to go further. And so of all living creatures whilst they are imprisoned, or restrained, with walls or chains; and of the water whilst it is kept in by banks or vessels, that otherwise would spread itself into a larger space, we use to say, they are not at liberty to move in such manner, as without those external impediments they would. But when the impediment of motion is in the constitution of the thing itself, we use not to say, it wants the liberty, but the power to move; as when a stone lieth still, or a man is fastened to his bed by sickness.

And according to this proper and generally received meaning of the word, a "freeman is he that, in those things which by his strength and wit he is able to do, is not hindered to do what he has a will to." But when the words "free" and "liberty" are applied to anything but "bodies," they are abused; for that which is not subject to motion is not subject to impediment; and therefore, when it is said, for example, the way is free, no liberty of the way is signified, but of those that walk in it without stop. And when we say a gift is free, there is not meant any liberty of the gift, but of the giver, that was not bound by any law or covenant to give it. So when we "speak freely," it is not the liberty of voice, or pronunciation, but of the man, whom no law hath obliged to speak otherwise than he did. Lastly, from the use of the word "free-will," no liberty can be inferred of the will, desire, or inclination, but the liberty of the man; which consisteth in this, that he finds no stop in doing what he has the will, desire, or inclination to do.

Fear and liberty are consistent; as when a man throweth his goods into the sea for "fear" the ship should sink, he doth it nevertheless very willingly, and may refuse to do it if he will it is therefore the action of one that was "free" ; so a man sometimes pays his debt, only for "fear" of imprisonment, which because nobody hindered him from detaining, was the action of a man at "liberty." And generally all actions which men do in commonwealths, for "fear" of the law, are actions which the doers had "liberty" to omit.

“Liberty” and "necessity" are consistent, as in the water, that hath not only "liberty," but a "necessity," of descending by the channel; so likewise in the actions which men voluntarily do which, because they proceed from their will, proceed

from "liberty," and yet, because every act of man's will, and every desire and inclination, proceedeth from some cause, and that from another cause, in a continual chain, whose first link is in the hand of God the first of all causes, proceed from "necessity." So that to him that could see the connection of those causes, the "necessity" of all men's voluntary actions would appear manifest. And therefore God, that seeth and disposeth all things, seeth also that the "liberty" of man in doing what he will is accompanied with the "necessity" of doing that which God will, and no more nor less. For though men may do many things which God does not command, nor is therefore author of them, yet they can have no passion, nor appetite to anything, of which appetite God's will is not the cause. And did not His will assure the "necessity" of man's will, and consequently of all that on man's will dependeth, the "liberty" of men would be a contradiction and impediment to the omnipotence and "liberty" of God. And this shall suffice, as to the matter in hand, of that natural "liberty," which only is properly called "liberty."

But as men, for the attaining of peace, and the conservation of themselves thereby, have made an artificial man, which we call a commonwealth; so also have they made artificial chains, called "civil laws," which they themselves, by mutual covenants, have fastened at one end, to the lips of that man, or assembly, to whom they have given the sovereign power; and at the other end to their own ears. These bonds, in their own nature but weak, may nevertheless be made to hold, by the danger, though not by the difficulty, of breaking them.

In relation to these bonds only it is that I am to speak now of the "liberty" of "subjects." For seeing there is no commonwealth in the world wherein there be rules enough set down for the regulating of all the actions and words of men, as being a thing impossible, it followeth necessarily that in all kinds of actions by the laws pretermitted, men have the liberty of doing what their own reasons shall suggest, for the most profitable to themselves. For if we take liberty in the proper sense, for corporal liberty; that is to say, freedom from chains and prison; it were very absurd for men to clamor as they do for the liberty they so manifestly enjoy. Again, if we take liberty for an exemption from laws, it is no less absurd for men to demand as they do that liberty by which all other men may be masters of their lives. And yet, as absurd as it is, this is it they demand;