Thomas Hobbes

“ But when men remember not how things are named, by general agreement, but either mistake and misname things, or name them aright by chance, they are not said to have science, but opinion; and the conclusions thence proceeding are uncertain, and for the most part erroneous. Now that science in particular from which proceed the true and evident conclusions of what is right and wrong, and what is good and hurtful to the being and well-being of mankind, the Latins call sapientia, and we by the general name of wisdom. ”

“ For if one part should have power to make the laws for all, they would by their laws, at their pleasure, forbid others to make peace or war, to levy taxes, or to yield fealty and homage without their leave; and they that had the right to make peace and war, and command the militia, would forbid the making of other laws, than what themselves liked. And though monarchies stand long, wherein the right of sovereignty hath seemed so divided, because monarchy of itself is a durable kind of government ”

“ Now seeing freedom cannot stand together with subjection, liberty in a commonwealth is nothing but government and rule, which because it cannot be divided, men must expect in common; and that can be no where but in the popular state, or democracy. ”

“ And such is the power of eloquence, as many times a man is made to believe thereby, that he sensibly feeleth smart and damage, when he feeleth none, and to enter into rage and indignation, without any other cause, than what is in the words and passion of the speaker. ”

“ And this knowledge is called experience; and the wisdom that proceedeth from it, is that ability to conjecture by the present, of what is past, and to come, which men call prudence. This being so, it is manifest presently, that the author of sedition, whosoever he be, must not be prudent. For if he consider and take his experiences aright, concerning the success which they have had, who have been the movers and authors of sedition, either in this or any other state, he shall find that of one man that hath thereby advanced himself to honour, twenty have come to a reproachful end. ”

“ For men ordinarily say this: that no man can partake of liberty, but only in a popular commonwealth. Whosoever therefore in a monarchical estate, where the sovereign power is absolutely in one man, claimeth liberty, claimeth (if the hardest construction should be made thereof) either to have the sovereignty in his turn, or to be colleague with him that hath it, or to have the monarchy changed into a democracy. ”

“ This considered, together with the business that he hath to do, who is the author of rebellion, (viz.) to make men believe that their rebellion is just, their discontents grounded upon great injuries, and their hopes great; there needeth no more to prove, there can be no author of rebellion, that is not an eloquent and powerful speaker, and withal (as hath been said before) a man of little wisdom. For the faculty of speaking powerfully, consisteth in a habit gotten of putting together passionate words, and applying them to the present passions of the hearer. ”

“ Besides discontent, to the disposing of a man to rebellion, and pretence, there is required, in the third place, hope of success, which consisteth in four points: 1. That the discontented have mutual intelligence; 2. that they have sufficient number; 3. that they have arms; 4. that they agree upon a head. For these four must concur to the making of one body of rebellion, in which intelligence is the life, number the limbs, arms the strength, and a head the unity, by which they are directed to one and the same action. ”

“ And as one claimeth, so doth another, every man esteeming his own desert greatest. Amongst all those that pretend to, or are ambitious of such honour, a few only can be served, unless it be in a democracy; the rest therefore must be discontent. And so much of the first thing that disposeth to rebellion, namely, discontent, consisting in fear and ambition.
4. The second thing that disposeth to rebellion, is pretence of right. ”

“ The fifth opinion: that the people is a distinct body from him or them that have the sovereignty over them, is an error already confuted, Part II. chap. XXI, sect. 11, where it is showed, that when men say: the people rebelleth, it is to be understood of those particular persons only, and not of the whole nation. And when the people claimeth any thing otherwise than by the voice of the sovereign power, it is not the claim of the people, but only of those particular men, that claim in their own persons ”

“ One is, when the command is against their conscience, and they believe it is unlawful for a subject at the command of the sovereign power to do any action, which he thinketh in his own conscience not lawful for him to do, or to omit any action, which he thinketh not lawful for him to omit. ”

“ And though in the charters of subordinate corporations, a corporation be declared to be one person in law, yet the same hath not been taken notice of in the body of a commonwealth or city, nor have any of those innumerable writers of politics observed any such union. ”

“ And that is when men have an opinion, or pretend to have an opinion: that in certain cases they may lawfully resist him or them that have the sovereign power, or deprive him or them of the means to execute the same. ”

“ For generally, not he that hath skill in geometry, or any other science speculative, but only he that understandeth what conduceth to the good and government of the people, is called a wise man. Now that no author of sedition can be wise in this acceptation of the word, is sufficiently proved, in that it hath been already demonstrated, that no pretence of sedition can be right or just ”

“ Of the Causes of Rebellion 1. Hitherto of the causes why, and the manner how, men have made commonwealths. In this chapter I shall show briefly, by what causes, and in what manner, they be again destroyed; not meaning to say anything concerning the dissolution of a commonwealth from foreign invasions, which is as it were the violent death thereof, I shall speak only of sedition, which is also the death of the commonwealth, but like to that which happeneth to a man from sickness and distemper. To dispose men to sedition three things concur. The first is discontent ”

“ The authors of rebellion, that is, the men that breed these dispositions to rebel in others, of necessity must have in them these three qualities: 1. To be discontented themselves; 2. to be men of mean judgment and capacity ”

“ For those two chapters have been wholly spent, to prove, that Christian religion not only forbiddeth not, but also commandeth, that in every commonwealth, every subject should in all things to the uttermost of his power obey the commands of him or them that is the sovereign thereof; and that a man in so obeying, doth according to his conscience and judgment, as having deposited his judgment in all controversies in the hands of the sovereign power ”

“ It remaineth therefore, that they be such, as name things not according to their true and generally agreed-upon names; but call right and wrong, good and bad, according to their passions, or according to the authorities of such as they admire, as Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, and others of like authority, who have given the names of right and wrong, as their passions have dictated; or have followed the authority of other men, as we do theirs. ”

“ The other kind of knowledge is the remembrance of the names or appellations of things, and how every thing is called, which is, in matters of common conversation, a remembrance of pacts and covenants of men made amongst themselves, concerning how to be understood of one another. ”

“ Thirdly, the other sort of discontent which troubleth the mind of them who otherwise live at ease, without fear of want, or danger of violence, ariseth only from a sense of their want of that power, and that honour and testimony thereof, which they think is due unto them. ”

“ And for the first, namely, that a man may lawfully do or omit any thing against his conscience, and from whence arise all seditions concerning religion and ecclesiastical government, it hath been plainly declared in the two last chapters, that such opinion is erroneous. ”

“ A fifth, when the commands seem hurtful to the people; and they think, every one of them, that the opinion and sense of the people is the same with the opinion of himself, and those that consent with him ”