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passions of men, when there is no visible power to keep them in awe, and tie them by fear of punishment to the performance of their covenants and observation of those laws of Nature set down in the fourteenth and fifteenth chapters.

For the laws of Nature, as "justice," "equity," "modesty," "mercy" and, in sum, "doing to others as we would be done to,' of themselves, without the terror of some power to cause them to be observed, are contrary to our natural passions, that carry us to partiality, pride, revenge, and the like. And covenants, without the sword, are but words, and of no strength to secure a man at all. Therefore, notwithstanding the laws of Nature, which every one hath then kept when he has the will to keep them, when he can do it safely, if there be no power erected or not great enough for our security, every man will, and may lawfully, rely on his own strength and art for caution against all other men. And in all places where men have lived by small families, to rob and spoil one another has been a trade, and so far from being reputed against the law of Nature, that the greater spoils they gained, the greater was their honor; and men observed no other laws therein but the laws of honor, that is, to abstain from cruelty, leaving to men their lives and instruments of husbandry. And as small families did then, so now do cities and kingdoms, which are but greater families, for their own security enlarge their dominions, upon all pretences of danger and fear of invasion or assistance that may be given to invaders, and endeavor as much as they can to subdue or weaken their neighbors by open force and secret arts, for want of other caution, justly; and are remembered for it in after ages with honor.

Nor is it the joining together of a small number of men that gives them this security, because, in small numbers, small additions on the one side or the other make the advantage of strength so great as is sufficient to carry the victory, and therefore gives en

them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently no culture of the earth, no navigation nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea, no commodious building. no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and, which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

couragement to an invasion. The multitude sufficient to confide in for our security is not determined by any certain number, but by comparison with the enemy we fear; and is then sufficient when the odds of the enemy is not of so visible and conspicuous moment to determine the event of war as to move him to attempt.

And be there never so great a multitude, yet, if their actions be directed according to their particular judgments and particular appetites, they can expect thereby no defence nor protection, neither against a common enemy nor against the injuries of one another. For, being distracted in opinions concerning the best use and application of their strength, they do not help, but hinder, one another, and reduce their strength by mutual opposition to nothing; whereby they are easily not only subdued by a very few that agree together, but also, when there is no common enemy, they make war upon each other for their particular interests. For, if we could suppose a great multitude of men to consent in the observation of justice and other laws of Nature, without a common power to keep them all in awe we might as well suppose all mankind to do the same; and then there neither would be nor need to be any civil government or commonwealth at all, because there would be peace without subjection.

Nor is it enough for the security which men desire should last all the time of their life that they be governed and directed by one judgment for a limited time, as in one battle or one war. For, though they obtain a victory by their unanimous endeavor against a foreign enemy, yet afterwards, when either they have no common enemy or he that by one part is held for an enemy is by another part held for a friend, they must needs by the difference of their interests dissolve and fall again into a war amongst themselves.

The only way to erect such a common power as may be able to defend them from the invasion of foreigners and the injuries of one another, and thereby to secure them in such sort as that by their own industry and by the fruits of the earth they may nourish themselves and live contentedly, is to confer all their power and strength upon one man, or upon one assembly of men, that may reduce all their wills by plurality of voices unto one will; which is as much as to say, to appoint one man or assembly of men

to bear their person; and every one to own and acknowledge himself to be author of whatsoever he that so beareth their person shall act, or cause to be acted, in those things which concern the common peace and safety; and therein to submit their wills, every one to his will, and their judgments to his judgment. This is more than consent or concord: it is a real unity of them all, in one and the same person, made by covenant of every man with every man, in such manner as if every man should say to every man, "I authorize and give up my right of governing myself to this man, or to this assembly of men, on this condition, that thou give up thy right to him and authorize all his actions in like manner." This done, the multitude so united in one person is called a "commonwealth," in Latin civitas. This is the generation of that great "leviathan," or, rather, to speak more reverently, of that "mortal god," to which we owe under the "immortal God," our peace and defense. For by this authority, given him by every particular man in the commonwealth, he hath the use of so much power and strength conferred on him that by terror thereof he is enabled to perform the wills of them all, to peace at home and mutual aid against their enemies abroad. And in him consisteth the essence of the commonwealth; which, to define it, is "one person, of whose acts a great multitude by mutual covenants one with another have made themselves every one the author, to the end he may use the strength and means of them all as he shall think expedient for their peace and common defense."

And he that carrieth this person is called "sovereign," and said to have "sovereign power"; and every one besides his "subjeet."

The attaining to this sovereign power is by two ways. One by natural force, as when a man maketh his children to submit themselves and their children to his government, as being able to destroy them if they refuse; or by war subdueth his enemies to his will, giving them their lives on that condition. The other is when men agree amongst themselves to submit to some man, or assembly of men, voluntarily, on confidence to be protected by him against all others. This latter may be called a political commonwealth, or commonwealth by "institution"; and the former, a commonwealth by "acquisition."

Of the Several Kinds of Commonwealth

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 an assembly of all that will come together, then it is a "democracy," or popular commonwealth; when an assembly 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.

Of the Liberty of Subjects

For

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. 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 should 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 of 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; so 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 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, not knowing that the laws are of no power to protect them, without a sword in the hands of a man or men to cause those laws to be put in execution. The liberty of a subject lieth therefore only in those things which in regulating their` actions the sovereign hath pretermitted, such as is the liberty to buy and sell and otherwise contract with one another, to choose their own abode, their own diet, their own trade of life, and institute their children as they themselves think fit, and the like.

Nevertheless we are not to understand that by such liberty the sovereign power of life and death is either abolished or limited. For it has been already shown that nothing the sovereign representative can do to a subject, on what pretence soever, can properly be

called injustice or injury, because every subject is author of every act the sovereign doth; so that he never wanteth right to anything, otherwise than as he himself is the subject of God, and bound thereby to observe the laws of Nature. And therefore it may, and doth, often happen in commonwealths that a subject may be put to death by the command of the sovereign power; and yet neither do the other wrong; as when Jephtha caused his daughter to be sacrificed; in which, and the like cases, he that so dieth had liberty to do the action for which he is nevertheless without injury put to death. And the same holdeth also in a sovereign prince that putteth to death an innocent subject. For, though the action be against the law of Nature as being contrary to equity, as was the killing of Uriah by David, yet it was not an injury to Uriah, but to God. Not to Uriah, because the right to do what he pleased was given him by Uriah himself; and yet to God, because David was God's subject, and prohibited all iniquity by the law of Nature; which distinction David himself, when he repented the fact, evidently confirmed, saying: "To Thee only have 1 sinned." In the same manner the people of Athens, when they banished the most potent of their commonwealth for ten years, thought they committed no injustice; and yet they never questioned what crime he had done, but what hurt he would do: nay, they commanded the banishment of they knew not whom; and every citizen bringing his oyster shell into the market-place written with the name of him he desired should be banished, without actually accusing him, sometimes banished an Aristides, for his reputation of justice, and sometimes a scurrilous jester, as Hyperbolus, to make a jest of it. And yet a man cannot say the sovereign people of Athens wanted right to banish them, or an Athenian the liberty to jest or to be just.

The liberty whereof there is so frequent and honorable mention in the histories and philosophy of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and in the writings and discourse of those that from them have received all their learning in the politics, is not the liberty of particular men, but the liberty of the commonwealth; which is the same with that which every man then should have, if there were no civil laws nor commonwealth at all. And the effects of it also be the same. For as amongst masterless men there is per

petual war of every man against his neighbor; no inheritance, to transmit to the son, nor to expect from the father; no propriety of goods, or lands; no security; but a full and absolute liberty in every particular man: so in states and commonwealths not dependent on one another every commonwealth, not every man, has an absolute liberty to do what it shall judge, that is to say, what that man, or assembly that representeth it, shall judge most conducing to their benefit. But withal they live in the condition of a perpetual war, and upon the confines of battle, with their frontiers armed and cannons planted against their neighbors round about. The Athenians and Romans were free, that is, free commonwealths; not that any particular men had the liberty to resist their own representative, but that their representative had the liberty to resist or invade other people. There is written on the turrets of the city of Lucca, in great characters, at this day, the word "Libertas"; yet no man can thence infer that a particular man has more liberty or immunity from the service of the commonwealth there than in Constantinople. Whether a commonwealth be monarchial or popular the freedom is still the same.

But it is an easy thing for men to be deceived by the specious name of liberty; and, for want of judgment to distinguish, mistake that for their private inheritance and birthright which is the right of the ablic only. And, when the same error is confirmed by the authority of men in reputation for their writings on this subject, it is no wonder if it produce sedition, and change of government. In these western parts of the world we are made to receive our opinions concerning the institution and rights of commonwealths, from Aristotle, Cicero, and other men, Greeks and Romans, that, living under popular states, derived those rights not from the principles of Nature but transcribed them into their books, out of the practice of their own commonwealths, which were popular; as the grammarians describe the rules of language out of the practice of the time, or the rules of poetry out of the poems of Homer and Virgil. And, because the Athenians were taught to keep them from desire of changing their government, that they were free men, and all that lived under monarchy were slaves, therefore Aristotle put it down in his Politics (lib. 6, cap. ii): "In democracy

'liberty' is to be supposed; for it is commonly held that no man is 'free' in any other government." And as Aristotle, so Cicero and other writers have grounded their civil doctrine on the opinions of the Romans, who were taught to hate monarchy, at first, by them that having deposed their sovereign shared amongst them the sovereignty of Rome, and afterwards by their successors. And by reading of these Greek and Latin authors men from their childhood have gotten a habit, under a false show of liberty, of favoring tumults, and of licentious controlling the actions of their sovereigns, and again of controlling those controllers; with the effusion of so much blood as I think I may truly say there was never anything so dearly bought as these western parts have bought the learning of the Greek and Latin tongues.

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And as those lees that trouble it refine
The agitated soul of generous wine,
So tears of joy, for your returning spilt,
Work out and expiate our former guilt.
Methinks I see those crowds on Dover's
strand,

Who in their haste to welcome you to land Choked up the beach with their still growing store

And made a wilder torrent on the shore: While, spurred with eager thoughts of past delight,

Those who had seen you, court a second sight,

Preventing still your steps and making haste To meet you often whereso'er you past. How shall I speak of that triumphant day, When you renewed the expiring pomp of May!

A month that owns an interest in your name;
You and the flowers are its peculiar claim.
That star, that at your birth shone out so
bright

It stained the duller sun's meridian light,
Did once again its potent fires renew,
Guiding our eyes to find and worship you.

And now Time's whiter series is begun, Which in soft centuries shall smoothly run; Those clouds that overcast your morn shall fly,

Dispelled to farthest corners of the sky.
Our nation, with united interest blest,
Not now content to poise, shall sway the rest.
Abroad your empire shall no limits know,
But, like the sea, in boundless circles flow;
Your much-loved fleet shall with a wide com-
mand

Besiege the petty monarchs of the land; And as old Time his offspring swallowed down,

Our ocean in its depths all seas shall drown. Their wealthy trade from pirates' rapine free,

Our merchants shall no more adventurers be;
Nor in the farthest East those dangers fear
Which humble Holland must dissemble here.
Spain to your gift alone her Indies owes,
For what the powerful takes not he bestows;
And France that did an exile's presence fear
May justly apprehend you still too near.
At home the hateful names of parties cease,
And factious souls are wearied into peace.
The discontented now are only they

Whose crimes before did your just cause

betray;

Of those your edicts some reclaim from sins, But most your life and blest example wins.

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