Thomas Hobbes

“ But he, whom men require to be put to death as being a Tyrant, commands either by Right, or without Right; if without Right, he is an enemy, and by Right to be put to death; but then this must not be called the killing a Tyrant, but an enemy: if by Right, then the divine interrogation takes place, Who hath told thee that he was a Tyrant, hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? For why doest thou call him a Tyrant, whom God hath made a King, except that thou being a private Person, usurpest to thy self the knowledge of good and evill? ”

“ But how pernicious this opinion is to all governments, but especially to that which is Monarchicall, we may hence discerne, namely, that by it every King, whether good or ill, stands exposed to be condemned by the judgement, and slain by the hand of every murtherous villain. ”

“ VI. It is a common doctrine, That faith and holinesse are not acquired by study, and naturall reason, but are alwayes supernaturally infused, and inspired into men: which, if it were true, I understand not why we should be commanded to give an account of our faith; or why any man, who is truly a Christian, should not be a Prophet; or lastly, why every man should not judge what's fit for him to doe, what to avoid, rather out of his own inspiration, then by the precepts of his Superiours, or right Reason. ”

“ Now that this Opinion cannot consist with the very being of Government, is evident from hence, that by it the knowledge of what is Good and Evill, that is to say, the definition of what is, and what is not against the Lawes, would return to each single Person: Obedience therefore will cease as oft as any thing seemes to be commanded contrary to the Civill Lawes, and together with it, all coercive jurisdiction, which cannot possibly be without the destruction of the very essence of Government. ”

“ They going to restore the decrepit old man to his youth again, by the counsell of Medea, they cut him into peeces, and set him in the fire to boyle, in vain expecting when he would live again; So the common people through their folly (like the daughters of Pelias) desiring to renew the ancient government, being drawne away by the eloquence of ambitious men, as it were by the witchcraft of Medea, divided into faction, they consume it rather by those flames, then they reforme it. ”

“ There are also some who divide the Supreme Authority so as to allow the power of War, and Peace, unto one, (whom they call a Monarch) but the right of raising Monies they give to some others, and not to him: But because monies are the sinewes of War, and Peace, they who thus divide the Authority, doe either really not divide it at all, but place it wholly in them, in whose power the money is, but give the name of it to another, or if they doe really divide it, they dissolve the Government: for neither upon necessity can War be waged, nor can the publique Peace be preserved without Money. ”

“ This therefore, that a Subject may have an action of Law against his Supreme Magistrate, is not strength of Argument sufficient to prove that he is tyed to his own Lawes. On the contrary, it is evident, that he is not tied to his owne Lawes, because no man is bound to himself. ”

“ Lawes therefore are set for Titius, and Caius, not for the Ruler: however, by the ambition of Lawyers, it is so ordered, that the Lawes, to unskilfull men seeme not to depend on the Authority of the Magistrate, but their Prudence.
V. In the fifth place, That the Supreme Authority may be divided, is a most fatall Opinion to all Common-weales. But diverse men divide it diverse wayes. For some divide it so as to grant a Supremacy to the Civill Power in matters pertaining to Peace, and the benefits of this life, but in things concerning the salvation of the Soul they transfer it on others. ”

“ But that which holds true in a City, that must be supposed to be true in a man, or an assembly of men, who have the Supreme Authority, for they make a City, which hath no being but by their Supreme Power. ”

“ So also in a Common-weale where the subjects begin to raise tumults, three things present themselves to our regard; First the Doctrines and the Passions contrary to Peace, wherewith the mindes of men are fitted and disposed; next their quality and condition who sollicite, assemble, and direct them already thus disposed, to take up armes, and quit their allegiance; Lastly, the manner how this is done, or the faction it selfe. But one, and the first which disposeth them to sedition, is this, That the knowledge of good and evill belongs to each single man. ”

“ Legitimate Kings therefore make the things they command, just, by commanding them, and those which they forbid, unjust, by forbidding them; but private men while they assume to themselves the knowledge of good and evill, desire to be even as Kings, which cannot be with the safety of the Common weale. ”

“ For he that knows not whence the Lawes derive their power, which are the Rules of just and unjust, honest and dishonest, good and evill; what makes and preserves Peace among men, what destroyes it; what is his, and what anothers; Lastly, what he would have done to himselfe (that he may doe the like to others) is surely to be accounted but meanly wise. But that they can turn their Auditors out of fools into madmen; that they can make things to them who are ill-affected seem worse, to them who are well-affected seem evil ”

“ And thou therefore hast also given up thy Right to him; thy Dominion therefore, and Propriety, is just so much as he will, and shall last so long as he pleases; even as in a Family, each Son hath such proper goods, and so long lasting, as seeme good to the Father. But the greatest part of men who professe Civill Prudence, reason otherwise; we are equall (say they) by nature; there is no reason why any man should by better Right take my goods from me, then I his from him ”

“ XIII. Many men who are themselves very well affected to civill society, doe through want of knowledge, cooperate to the disposing of subjects mindes to sedition, whilst they teach young men a doctrine conformable to the said opinions in their Schooles, and all the people in their Pulpits. Now they who desire to bring this disposition into Act, place their whole endeavour in this, First, that they may joyn the ill affected together into faction and conspiracy ”

“ If they sin against their conscience, they declare that they fear not the paines of the world to come; if they sinne against Right, they doe as much as in them lyes, abolish humane society, and the civill life of the present world. Their opinion therefore who teach, that subjects sinne when they obey their Princes commands, which to them seem unjust, is both erroneous, and to be reckoned among those which are contrary to civill obedience ”

“ In all Government we must conceive that the hand which holds the Sword is the King, or Supreme Councell, which is no lesse to be sustained, and nourisht, by the Subjects care and industry, then that wherewith each man procures himself a private fortune ”

“ Give therefore unto thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy People, that I may discern between good and evill. Since therefore it belongs to Kings to discerne betweene good and evill, wicked are those, though usuall sayings, that he onely is a King who does righteously, and that Kings must not be obeyed, unlesse they command us just things, and many other such like. Before there was any government, just and unjust had no being, their nature onely being relative to some command, and every action in its own nature is indifferent ”

“ A return therefore must be made to the private knowledge of Good and Evil; which cannot be granted without the ruine of all Governments. This Opinion hath spread it self so largely through the whole Christian world, that the number of Apostates from natural reason is almost become infinite. ”

“ Now because all men are not what they appear to themselves, and if they were, yet all (by reason of the multitude) could not be received to publique Offices, its necessary that many must be passed by. These therefore conceiving themselves affronted, can desire nothing more, partly out of envy to those who were preferred before them, partly out of hope to overwhelm them, then ill successe to the publique Consultations; and therefore its no marvell if with greedy appetites they seek for occasions of innovations. ”

“ But men must consider, that they who have no patrimony, must not onely labour that they may live, but fight too, that they may labour. Every one of the Jewes, who in Esdras his time built the Walls of Jerusalem, did the work with one hand, and held the Sword in the other. ”

“ And it sprang from sick-brained men, who having gotten good store of Holy Words by frequent reading of the Scriptures, made such a connexion of them usually in their preaching, that their Sermons, signifying just nothing, yet to unlearned men seemed most divine; for he whose non-sense appears to be a Divine speech, must necessarily seeme to be inspired from above. ”

“ They gather them into faction, while they make themselves the relators, and interpretors of the counsels and actions of single men, and nominate the Persons and Places, to assemble and deliberate of such things whereby the present government may be reformed, according as it shall seem best to their interests. ”

“ All men naturally strive for Honour, and Preferment, but chiefly they who are least troubled with caring for necessary things. For these men are invited by their vacancy sometimes to disputation among themselves concerning the Common-weal, sometimes to an easie reading of Histories, Politiques, Orations, Poems, and other pleasant Books ”

“ They who observe not this distinction, will fall into a necessity of sinning, as oft as any thing is commanded them, which either is, or seems to be unlawfull to them: for if they obey, they sin against their conscience, and if they obey not, against Right. ”

“ In the state of nature indeed, where every man lives by equall Right, and have not by any mutuall Pacts submitted to the command of others, we have granted this to be true, nay in the first Chapter, Article 9. ”

“ But the most part of men consider nothing of these things, for they suffer the same thing with them who have a disease they call an Incubus, which springing from Gluttony, it makes men believe they are invaded, opprest, and stifled with a great weight: Now it is a thing manifest of it selfe, that they who seeme to themselves to be burthened with the whole load of the Common-weal, are prone to be Seditious ”