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say, if it be sound, if it be useful, if it be not vulgar, I humbly offer it to your lordship, as both my glory and my protection. But if in any thing I have erred, your lordship will yet accept it as a testimony of my gratitude; for that the means of study, which I enjoyed by your lordship's goodness, I have employed in the procurement of your lordship's favour. The God of Heaven crown your lordship with length of days in this earthly station, and in the Heavenly Jerusalem with a crown of glory.

3. In 1650, Hobbes published at London his treatise of " Human Nature."

4. The same year also appeared a larger treatise, entitled De Corpore Politico; or, Of the Body Politic.

5. In the mean time, he was digesting, with great care, the whole body of his principles, religious, moral, and political, into one complete system, which he published under the title of" Leviathan; or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, ecclesiastical and civil."-Lond. 1651, folio.

This important work is divided into four parts. The first treats of man in the abstract. The second regards him as a member of a commonwealth. The third examines the nature

of a christian commonwealth. The fourth is entitled, The Kingdom of Darkness.-The extracts will be too short to give a complete view of the peculiar principles of Hobbes; I shall, however, attempt it as far as my plan will admit. He observes in his introduction:

Nature (the art whereby God hath made and governs the world) is by the art of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, that it can make an artificial animal: for seeing life is but a motion of limbs, the beginning whereof is in some principal part within; why may we not say, that all automata (engines that move themselves by springs and wheels, as doth a watch) have an artificial life? For what is the heart but a spring, and the nerves but so many strings, and the joints but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body, such as was intended by the artificer? Art goes yet further, imitating that rational and most excellent work of nature, man; for by art is created that great leviathan, called a Commonwealth, or State, (in Latin Civitas) which is but an artificial man, though of greater stature and strength than the natural, for whose protection and defence it was intended; and in which the sovereignty is an artificial soul, as giving life and motion to the whole body; the magistrates and other officers of judicature and execution, artifi

cial joints; reward and punishment (by which fastened to the seat of the sovereignty, every joint and member is moved to perform his duty,) are the nerves, that do the same in the body natural; the wealth and riches of all the particular members, are the strength; salus populi (the people's safety) its business; counsellors, by whom all things needful for it to know are suggested unto it, are the memory; equity and laws, an artificial reason and will; concord health; sedition, sickness; and civil war, death. Lastly, the pacts and covenants, by which the parts of this body politic were at first made, set together, and united, resemble that fiat, or “let us make man," pronounced by God in the creation,

To describe the nature of this artificial man, I will consider, first, the matter thereof, and the artificer; both which is man. Second, how and by what covenants it is made; what are the rights and just power or authority of a sovereign; and what it is that preserveth and dissolveth it. Third, what is a christian commonwealth. Fourth, and lastly, what is the kingdom of darkness.

Of the first and second Natural Laws. Chap. 14.

The right of nature, which writers commonly call jus naturale, is the liberty each man hath to use his

own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life; and consequently, of doing any thing which, in his own judgment and reason, he shall conceive the aptest means thereunto.

By liberty is understood, according to the proper signification of the word, the absence of external impediments; which impediments may oft take away part of a man's power to do what he would; but cannot hinder him from using the power left him, according as his judgment and reason shall dictate to him.

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A law of nature (lex naturalis) is a precept, or general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same and to omit that by which he thinketh it may be best preserved. For though they that speak of this subject, use to confound jus and lex, right and law; yet they ought to be distinguished, because right consisteth in liberty to do, or to forbear; whereas law determineth and bindeth to one of them: so that law and right differ as much as obligation and liberty, which, in one and the same matter, are inconsistent.

And because the condition of man (as hath been declared in the precedent chapter) is a condition of war of every one against every one, in which case every one is governed by his own reason; and there is

nothing he can make use of, that may not be a help unto him in preserving his life against his enemies ; it followeth, that in such a condition, every man has a right to every thing, even to one another's body. And therefore, as long as this natural right of every man to every thing endureth, there can be no security to any man (how strong or wise soever he be) of living out the time which nature ordinarily alloweth men to live. And consequently it is a precept, or general rule of reason, "that every man ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war." The first branch of which rule containeth the first and fundamental law of nature; which is, " to seek peace, and follow it." The second, the sum of the right of nature; which is, " by all means we can, to defend ourselves."

From this fundamental law of nature, by which men are commanded to endeavour peace, is derived this second law; "that a man may be willing, when others are so too, as far-forth, as for peace and defence of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to al things, and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himself;" for as long as every man holdeth this right, of doing any thing he liketh, so long are all men in the condition of war. But if

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