 CHAPTER XXIX OF THOSE THINGS THAT WEEKEN OR TEND TO THE DISSOLUTION OF A COMMON WEALTH. Though nothing can be immortal which mortals make, yet if men had the use of reason they pretend to, their commonwealths might be secured, at least, from perishing by internal diseases. For by the nature of their institution, they are designed to live as long as mankind, or as the laws of nature, or as justice itself, which gives them life. Therefore, when they come to be dissolved, not by external violence, but interest in disorder, the fault is not in men, as they are the matter, but as they are the makers and orderers of them. For men, as they become at least weary of irregular jostling and hewing one another, and desire with all their hearts to conform themselves into one firm and lasting edifice, so for want both of the art of making fit laws to square their actions by, and also of humility and patience to suffer the rude and cumbersome points of their present greatness to be taken off, they cannot, without the help of a very able architect, be compiled into any other than a crazy building, such as, hardly lasting out their own time, must assuredly fall upon the heads of their posterity. Amongst the infirmities, therefore, of a commonwealth, I will reckon in the first place those that arise from an imperfect institution, and resemble the diseases of a natural body, which proceed from a defectuous procreation, of which this is one, that a man to obtain a kingdom is sometimes content with less power than to the peace and defense of the commonwealth is necessarily required. From whence it cometh to pass, that when the exercise of the power laid by is for the public safety to be resumed, it hath the resemblance of an unjust act, which dispose of great numbers of men, when occasion is presented, to rebel, in the same manner as the bodies of children gotten by diseased parents are subject either to untimely death, or to purge the ill quality derived from their vicious conception by breaking out into biles and scabs. And when kings deny themselves some such necessary power, it is not always, though sometimes, out of ignorance of what is necessary to the office they undertake, but many times out of the hope to recover the same again at their pleasure, wherein they reason not well, because such as will hold them to their promises shall be maintained against them by foreign commonwealths, who in order to the good of their own subjects, let slip few occasions to weaken the estate of their neighbors. So was Thomas Beckett, Archbishop of Canterbury, supported against Henry II by the Pope, the subjection of ecclesiastics to the commonwealth having been dispensed with by William the Conqueror at his reception, when he took an oath not to infringe the liberty of the church. And so were the barons, whose power was by William Rufus, to have their help in transferring the succession from his elder brother to himself, increased to a degree inconsistent with the sovereign power, maintained in their rebellion against King John by the French. Nor does this happen in monarchy only, for whereas the style of the ancient Roman commonwealth was the senate and people of Rome, neither senate nor people pretended to the whole power, which first caused the seditions of Tiberius Cracus, Caius Cracus, Lutsus Saturnius, and others. And afterwards the wars between the senate and the people under Marius and Silla, and again under Pompey and Tesar to the extinction of their democracy and the setting up of monarchy. The people of Athens bound themselves but from one only action, which was that no man on pain of death should propound the renewing of the war for the island of Salamis. And yet thereby, if Solon had not caused to be given out, he was mad, and afterwards, in gesture and habit of a madman, and in verse, propounded it to the people that flocked about him, they had had an enemy perpetually in readiness, even at the gates of their city. Such damage or shifts are all commonwealths forced to that have their power never so little limited. In the second place, I observe the diseases of the commonwealth that proceed from the poison of seditious doctrines, whereof one is that every private man is judge of good and evil actions. This is true in the condition of mere nature, where there are no civil laws, and also under civil government in such cases as are not determined by the law. But otherwise it is manifest that the measure of good and evil actions is the civil law, and the judge the legislator, who is always representative of the commonwealth. From this false doctrine, men are disposed to debate with themselves and dispute the commands of the commonwealth, and afterwards to obey or disobey them as in their private judgments they shall think fit, whereby the commonwealth is distracted and weakened. Another doctrine repugnant to civil society is that whatsoever a man does against his conscience is sin, and it depended on the presumption of making himself judge of good and evil. For a man's conscience in his judgment is the same thing, and as the judgment so also the conscience may be erroneous. Therefore though he that is subject to no civil law, sineth in all he does against his conscience, because he has no other rule to follow but his own reason, yet it is not so with him that lives in a commonwealth, because the law is the public conscience by which he hath already undertaken to be guided. Otherwise in such diversity as there is of private consciences, which are but private opinions, the commonwealth must needs be distracted and no man dare to obey the sovereign power farther than it shall seem good in his own eyes. It has been also commonly taught that faith and sanctity are not to be attained by study and reason, but by supernatural inspiration or infusion, which granted I see not why any man should render a reason of his faith, or why every Christian should not be also a prophet, or why any man should take the law of his country rather than his own inspiration for the rule of his action. And thus we fall again into the fault of taking upon us to judge of good and evil, or to make judges of it such private men as pretend to be supernaturally inspired to the dissolution of all civil government. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by those accidents which guide us into the presence of them that speak to us, which accidents are all contrived by God Almighty, and yet are not supernatural but only for the great number of them that concur to every effect on observable. Faith and sanctity are indeed not very frequent, but yet they are not miracles but brought to pass by education, discipline, correction, and other natural ways by which God work of them in his elect at such time as he think of fit. And these three opinions, pernicious to peace and government, have in this part of the world proceeded chiefly from tongues and pens of unlearned divines, who joining the words of holy scripture together otherwise is agreeable to reason, do what they can to make men think that sanctity and natural reason cannot stand together. A fourth opinion repugnant to the nature of a commonwealth is this, that he that have the sovereign power is subject to the civil laws. It is true that sovereigns are all subject to the laws of nature, because such laws be divine and cannot by any man or commonwealth be abrogated. But to those laws which the sovereign himself, that is which the commonwealth makeeth, he is not subject. For to be subject to laws is to be subject to the commonwealth, that is to the sovereign representative, that is to himself which is not subjection but freedom from the laws. Which error because it set of the laws above the sovereign, set of also a judge above him, and a power to punish him, which is to make a new sovereign, and again for the same reason a third to punish the second, and so continually without end, to the confusion and dissolution of the commonwealth. A fifth doctrine that tendeth to the dissolution of the commonwealth is that every private man has an absolute propriety in his goods, such as exclusive the right of the sovereign. Every man has indeed a propriety that excludes the right of every other subject, and he has it only from the sovereign power, without the protection whereof every other man should have right to the same. But the right of the sovereign also be excluded, he cannot perform the office they have put him into, which is to defend them both from foreign enemies and from the injuries of one another, and consequently there is no longer a commonwealth. And if the propriety of subjects exclude not the right of the sovereign representative to their goods, much less to their offices of judicature or execution in which they represent the sovereign himself. There is a sixth doctrine plainly and directly against the essence of a commonwealth, and it is this, that the sovereign power may be divided. For what is it to divide the power of a commonwealth, but to dissolve it? For powers divided mutually destroy each other, and for these doctrines men are chiefly beholding to some of those that making profession of the laws endeavor to make them depend upon their own learning, and not upon the legislative power. And as false doctrine, so also often times the example of different government in a neighboring nation, disposed of men to alteration of the form already settled. So the people of the Jews were stirred up to reject God, and to call upon the prophet Samuel for a king after the manner of the nations. So also the lesser cities of Greece were continually disturbed with seditions of the aristocratical and democratical factions, one part of almost every commonwealth desiring to imitate the Lacedaemonians, the other the Athenians. And I doubt not, but many men have been contented to see the late troubles in England out of an imitation of the low countries, supposing there needed no more to grow rich than to change as they had done the form of their government. For the constitution of man's nature is of itself subject to desire novelty. When therefore they are provoked to the same by the neighborhood also of those that have been enriched by it, it is almost impossible to be content with those that solicit them to change, and love the first beginnings, though they be grieved with the continuance of disorder, like hot bloods that, having gotten the itch, tear themselves with their own nails till they can endure the smart no longer. And as to rebellion in particular against monarchy, one of the most frequent causes of it is the reading of the books of policy and histories of the ancient Greeks and Romans, from which young men and all others that are unprovided of the antidote of solid reason, receiving a strong and delightful impression of the great exploits of war achieved by the conductors of their armies, receive with all a pleasing idea of all they have done besides, and imagine their great prosperity not to have proceeded from the emulation of particular men, but from the virtue of their popular form of government not considering the frequent seditions and civil wars produced by the imperfection of their policy. From the reading I say of such books, men have undertaken to kill their kings, because the Greek and Latin writers in their books and discourses of policy make it lawful and laudable for any man so to do, provided before he do it he call him tyrant. For they say not regicide, that is killing of a king, but tyrannicide, that is killing of a tyrant, is lawful. From the same books they that live under a monarch conceive the opinion that the subjects in a popular commonwealth enjoy liberty, but that in a monarchy they are all slaves. I say they that live under a monarchy conceive such an opinion, not that they live under a popular government, for they find no such matter. In some I cannot imagine how anything can be more prejudicial to a monarchy than the allowing of such books to be publicly read, without present applying such correctives of discrete masters as are fit to take away their venom. Which venom I will not doubt to compare to the biting of a mad dog, which is a disease that physicians call hydrophobia or fear of water. For as he that is so bitten has a continual torment of thirst, and yet abhor of water, and is in such an estate as if the poison endeavoured to convert him into a dog, so when a monarchy is once bitten to the quick by those democratical writers that continually snarl at that estate, it want if nothing more than a strong monarch, which nevertheless out of a certain tyrannophobia or fear of being strongly governed, when they have him they abhor. As there have been doctors that hold there be three souls in a man, so there be also that think there may be more souls that is more sovereigns than one in a commonwealth, and set up a supremacy against the sovereignty, canons against laws, and a ghostly authority against the civil, working on men's minds with words and distinctions that of themselves signify nothing, but berate by their obscurity that their walk of as some think invisibly another kingdom as it were a kingdom of fairies in the dark. Now seeing it is manifest that the civil power and the power of the commonwealth is the same thing, and that supremacy and the power of making canons and granting faculties imply of a commonwealth, it followeth that where one is sovereign another supreme, where one can make laws and another make canons there must needs be two commonwealths of one and the same subjects which is a kingdom divided in itself and cannot stand. For notwithstanding the insignificant distinction of temporal and ghostly, they are still two kingdoms and every subject is subject to two masters. For seeing the ghostly power challenge of the right to declare what is sin, it challengeeth by consequence to declare what is law, sin being nothing but the transgression of the law, and again the civil power challenging to declare what is law, every subject must obey two masters, who both will have their commands be observed as law, which is impossible. Or if it be but one kingdom, either the civil which is the power of the commonwealth must be subordinate to the ghostly, and then there is no sovereignty but the ghostly, or the ghostly must be subordinate to the temporal, and then there is no supremacy but the temporal. When therefore these two powers oppose one another, the commonwealth cannot but be in great danger of civil war and dissolution. For the civil authority being more visible and standing in the clearer light of natural reason cannot choose but draw to it in all times a very considerable part of the people, and the spiritual, though it stand in the darkness of school distinctions and hard words, yet because the fear of darkness and ghosts is greater than other fears, cannot want a party sufficient to trouble and sometimes to destroy a commonwealth. And this is a disease which not unfitly may be compared to the epilepsy or falling sickness, which the Jews took to be one kind of possession by spirits in the body natural. For as in this disease there is an unnatural spirit or wind in the head that obstructs the roots of the nerves and moving them violently take of the motion which naturally they should have from the power of the soul in the brain, thereby cause of violent and irregular motions which men call convulsions in the parts, in so much as he that is seized therewith falleth down sometimes into the water and sometimes into the fire as a man deprived of his senses. So also in the body politic, when the spiritual power move with the members of a commonwealth by the terror of punishments and hope of rewards which are the nerves of it, otherwise than by the civil power which is the soul of the commonwealth, they ought to be moved and by strange and hard words suffocates their understanding. It must needs thereby distract the people and either overwhelm the commonwealth with oppression or cast it into the fire of a civil war. Sometimes also in the merely civil government there be more than one soul as when the power of levying money which is the nutritive faculty has depended on a general assembly, the power of conduct and command which is the motive faculty on one man and the power of making laws which is the rational faculty on the accidental consent not only of those two but also of a third. This endangereth the commonwealth, sometimes for want of consent to good laws but most often for want of such nourishment as is necessary to life and motion. For although few perceive that such government is not government but division of the commonwealth into three factions and call it mixed monarchy, yet the truth is that it is not one independent commonwealth but three independent factions nor one representative person but three. In the kingdom of God there may be three persons independent without breach of unity in God that reigneth but where men reign that be subject to diversity of opinions it cannot be so. And therefore if the king bear the person of the people and the general assembly bear also the person of the people and another assembly bear the person of a part of the people they are not one person nor one sovereign but three persons and three sovereigns. To what disease in the natural body of men I may exactly compare this irregularity of a commonwealth I know not but I have seen a man that had another man growing out of his side with the head arms breast and stomach of his own. If he had had another man growing out of his other side the comparison might then have been exact. Hitherto I have named such diseases of a commonwealth as are of the greatest and most present danger. There be other not so great which nevertheless are not unfit to be observed. As first the difficulty of raising money for the necessary uses of the commonwealth especially in the approach of war. This difficulty arises from the opinion that every subject half of a propriety in his lands and goods exclusive of the sovereign's right to the use of the same. From whence it come of to pass that the sovereign power which foresee of the necessities and dangers of the commonwealth finding the passage of money to the public treasury obstructed by the tenacity of the people whereas it ought to extend itself to encounter and prevent such dangers in their beginnings contract if itself as long as it can and when it cannot longer struggles with the people by stratagems of law to obtain little sums which not sufficing he is faint at least violently to open the way for present supply or perish and being put off into these extremities at last reduce of the people to their due temper or else the commonwealth must perish. In so much as we may compare this distemper very aptly to an ague wherein the fleshy parts being congealed or by venomous matter obstructed the veins which by their natural course empty themselves into the heart are not as they ought to be supplied from the arteries whereby they are succeeded at first a cold contraction and trembling of the limbs and afterwards a hot and strong endeavor of the heart to force a passage for the blood and before it can do that content of itself with the small refreshments of such things as cool for a time till if nature be strong enough it break at last the contumacy of the parts obstructed and dissipate of the venom into sweat or if nature be too weak the patient die of again there is sometimes in a commonwealth a disease which resemble of the pleurisy and that is when the treasury of the commonwealth flowing out of its due course is gathered together in too much abundance in one or a few private men by monopolies or by farms of the public revenues in the same manner as the blood in a pleurisy getting into the membrane of the breast breed of there and inflammation accompanied with a fever and painful stitches also the popularity of a potent subject unless the commonwealth have very good caution of his fidelity is a dangerous disease because the people which should receive their motion from the authority of the sovereign by the flattery and by the reputation of an ambitious man are drawn away from their obedience to the laws to follow a man of whose virtues and designs they have no knowledge and this is commonly of more danger in a popular government than in a monarchy because an army is of so great force and multitude as it may easily be made believe they are the people by this means it was that julius cesar who was set up by the people against the senate having one to himself the affections of his army made himself master both of senate and people and this proceeding of popular and ambitious men is plain rebellion and may be resembled to the effects of witchcraft another infirmity of the commonwealth is the immoderate greatness of a town when it is able to furnish out of its own circuit the number and expense of a great army as also the great number of corporations which are as it were many lesser commonwealths in the bowels of a greater like warrants in the entrails of a natural man to this may be added liberty of disputing against absolute power by pretenders to political prudence which though bred for the most part in the leaves of the people yet animated by false doctrines are perpetually meddling with the fundamental laws to the molestation of the commonwealth like the little warms which physicians call ascarides we may further add the insatiable appetite or bulimia of enlarging dominion with the incurable wounds thereby many times received from the enemy and the winds of ununited conquests which are many times a burden and with less danger lost than kept as also the lethargy of ease and consumption of riot and vain expense lastly when in a war foreign or intestine the enemies get a final victory so as the forces of the commonwealth keeping the field no longer there is no further protection of subjects in their loyalty then is the commonwealth dissolved and every man at liberty to protect himself by such courses as his own discretion shall suggest unto him for the sovereign is the public soul giving life and motion to the commonwealth which expiring the members are governed by it no more than the carcass of the man by his departed though immortal soul for though the right of a sovereign monarch cannot be extinguished by the act of another yet the obligation of the members may for he that wants protection may seek it anywhere and when he hath it is obliged without fraudulent pretense of having submitted himself out of fear to protect his protection as long as he is able but when the power of an assembly is once suppressed the right of the same perish of utterly because the assembly itself is extinct and consequently there is no possibility for sovereignty to re-enter end of chapter 29 chapter 30 of Leviathan this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Nicholas James Bridgewater Leviathan by Thomas Hobbs chapter 30 of the office of the sovereign representative the office of the sovereign be it a monarch or an assembly consisteth in the end for which he was trusted with the sovereign power namely the procuration of the safety of the people to which he's obliged by the law of nature and to render an account thereof to God the author of that law and to none but him but by safety here is not meant to bear preservation but also all other contentments of life which every man by lawful industry without danger or hurt to the common wealth shall acquire to himself and this is intended should be done not by care applied to individuals further than their protection from injuries when they shall complain but by a general providence contained in public instruction both of doctrine and example and in the making and executing of good laws to which individual persons may apply their own cases and because if the essential rights of sovereignty specified before in the 18th chapter be taken away the common wealth is thereby dissolved and every man returneth into the condition and calamity of a war with every other man which is the greatest evil that can happen in this life it is the office of the sovereign to maintain those rights entire and consequently against his duty first to transfer to another or to lay from himself any of them for he that deserteth the means deserteth the ends and he deserteth the means that being the sovereign acknowledges himself subject to the civil laws and renounce the power of supreme judicature or of making war a peace by his own authority or of judging of the necessities of the common wealth or of levying money and soldiers when and as much as in his own conscience he shall judge necessary or of making officers and ministers both of war and peace or of appointing teachers and examining what doctrines are conformable or contrary to the defense peace and good of the people secondly it is against his duty to let the people be ignorant or misinformed of the grounds and reasons of those his essential rights because thereby men are easy to be seduced and drawn to resist him when the common wealth shall require their use in exercise and the grounds of these rights have the rather need to be diligently and truly taught because they cannot be maintained by any civil law or terror of legal punishment for a civil law that shall forbid rebellion and such is all resistance to the essential rights of sovereignty is not as a civil law any obligation but by virtue only of the law of nature that forbiddeth the violation of faith which natural obligation if men know not they cannot know the right of any law the sovereign maketh and for the punishment they take it but for an act of hostility which when they think they have strength enough they will endeavor by acts of hostility to avoid as i have heard some say that justice is but a word without substance and that whatsoever a man can by force or are to acquire to himself not only in the condition of war but also in a common wealth is his own which i have already showed to be false so there be also that maintain that there are no grounds nor principles of reason to sustain those essential rights which make sovereignty absolute for if there were they would have been found out in some place or other whereas we see there has not hitherto been any common wealth where those rights have been acknowledged or challenged wherein they argue as ill as if the savage people of america should deny there were any grounds or principles of reason so to build a house as to last as long as the materials because they never yet saw any so well built time and industry produce every day new knowledge and as the art of well building is derived from principles of reason observed by industrious men that had long studied the nature of materials and the diverse effects of figure and proportion long after mankind began though poorly to build so long time after men have begun to constitute common wealths imperfect and apt to relapse into disorder there may principles of reason be found out by industrious meditation to make use of them or be neglected by them or not concern with my particular interest at this day very little but supposing that these of mine are not such principles of reason yet am i sure they are principles from authority of scripture as i shall make it appear when i shall come to speak of the kingdom of god administered by moses over the jews his peculiar people by covenant but they say again that though the principles be right yet common people are not of capacity enough to be made to understand them i should be glad that the rich and potent subjects of a kingdom or those that are accounted the most learned were no less incapable than they but all men know that the obstructions to this kind of doctrine proceed not so much from the difficulty of the matter as from the interest of them that are to learn potent men digest hardly anything that set up a power to bridle their affections and learned men anything that discovereth their errors and thereby lesseneth their authority whereas the common people's minds unless they be tainted with dependence on the potent or scribbled over with the opinions of their doctors are like clean paper fit to receive whatsoever by public authority shall be imprinted in them shall whole nations be brought to acquiesce in the great mysteries of christian religion which are above reason and millions of men be made believe that the same body may be in innumerable places at one on the same time which is against reason and shall not men be able by their teaching and preaching protected by the law to make that received which is so consonant to reason that any unprejudicated man needs no more to learn it than to hear it i conclude therefore that in the instruction of the people in the essential rights which are the natural and fundamental laws of sovereignty there is no difficulty whilst the sovereign has his power entire but what proceeds from his own fault or the fault of those who trusteth in the administration of the commonwealth and consequently it is his duty to cause them so to be instructed and not only his duty but his benefit also and security against the danger that may arrive to himself in his natural person from rebellion and to descend to particulars the people ought to be taught first that they ought not to be in love with any form of government they see in their neighbour nations more than with their own nor whatsoever present prosperity they behold in nations that are otherwise governed than they to desire change for the prosperity of a people ruled by an aristocratical or democratical assembly cometh not from aristocracy nor from democracy but from the obedience and concord of the subjects nor do the people flourish in a monarchy because one man has the right to rule them but because they obey him take away in any kind of state the obedience and consequently the concord of the people and they shall not only not flourish but in short time be dissolved and they that go about by disobedience to do no more than reform the commonwealth shall find they do thereby destroy it like the foolish daughters of Pellius in the fable which desiring to renew the youth of their decrepit father did by the council of media cut him in pieces and boil him together with strange herbs but made not of him a new man this desire of change is like the breach of the first of God's commandments for there God says non habebe steos alianos thou shalt not have the gods of other nations and in another place concerning kings that they are gods secondly they are to be taught that they ought not to be led with admiration of the virtue of any of their fellow subjects how high so ever he stand nor how conspicuously so ever he shine in the commonwealth nor of any assembly except the sovereign assembly so as to defer to them any obedience or honor appropriate to the sovereign only whom in their particular stations they represent nor to receive any influence from them but such as is conveyed by them from the sovereign authority for that sovereign cannot be imagined to love his people as he ought that is not jealous of them but suffers them by the flattery of popular men to be seduced from their loyalty as they have often been not only secretly but openly so as to proclaim marriage with them by preachers and by publishing the same in the open streets which may fitly be compared to the violation of the second of the ten commandments thirdly in consequence to this they ought to be informed how great fault it is to speak evil of the sovereign representative whether one man or an assembly of men or to argue and dispute his power or any way to use his name irrevenly whereby he may be brought into contempt with his people and their obedience in which the safety of the commonwealth consists of slackened which doctrine the third commandment by resemblance pointeth to fourthly seeing people cannot be taught this nor when tis taught remember it nor after one generation past so much as know in whom the sovereign power is placed without setting apart from their ordinary labor some certain times in which they may attend those that are appointed to instruct them it is necessary that some such times be determined wherein they may assemble together and after prayers and praises given to God the sovereign of sovereigns hear those their duties told them and the positive laws such as generally concern them all read and expounded and be put in mind of the authority that maketh them laws to this end had the Jews every seventh day a Sabbath in which the law was read and expounded and in the solemnity were of they were put in mind that their king was God that having created the world in six days he rested the seventh day and by their resting on it from their labor that that God was their king which redeemed them from their servile and painful labor in Egypt and gave them a time after they had rejoiced in God to take joy also in themselves by lawful recreation so that the first table of the commandments is spent all in setting down the sum of God's absolute power not only as God but as king by pact in peculiar of the Jews and may therefore give light to those that have the sovereign power conferred on them by the consent of men to see what doctrine they ought to teach their subjects and because the first instruction of children dependeth on the care of their parents it is necessary that they should be obedient to them whilst they are under their tuition and not only so but that also afterwards as gratitude requires they acknowledge the benefit of their education by external signs of honor to which end they are to be taught that originally the father of every man was also his sovereign lord with power over him of life and death and that the father of families when by instituting a commonwealth they resigned that absolute power yet it was never intended they should lose the honor due unto them for their education for to relinquish such right was not necessary to the institution of sovereign power nor would there be any reason why any man should desire to have children or take the care to nourish and instruct them if they are afterwards to have no other benefit from them than from other men and this occurred with the fifth commandment again every sovereign ought to cause justice to be taught which consists of them taking from no man what is his is as much as to say to cause men to be taught not to deprive their neighbor by violence or fraud of anything which by the sovereign authority is theirs of things held in propriety those that are dearest to a man are his own life and limbs and in the next degree in most men those that concern conjugal affection and after them riches and means of living therefore the people ought to be taught to abstain from violence to one another's person by private revenges from violation of conjugal honor and from forcibly rapine and fraudulent surruption of one another's goods for which purpose also it is necessary they be showed the evil consequences of false judgment by corruption neither of judges or witnesses whereby the distinction of propriety is taken away and justice becomes of no effect all which things are intimated in the sixth seventh eighth and ninth commandments lastly they are to be taught that not only the unjust facts but the designs and intentions to do them though by accident hindered are injustice which consists of in the privacy of the will as well as in the irregularity of the act and this is the intention of the tenth commandment and the sum of the second table which is reduced all to this one commandment of mutual charity thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself as the sum of the first table is reduced to the love of god whom they had then newly received as their king as for the means and conduits by which the people may receive this instruction we are to search by what means so many opinions contrary to the peace of mankind upon weak and false principles have nevertheless been so deeply rooted in them I mean those which I have in the precedent chapter specified as that men shall judge of what is lawful and unlawful not by the law itself but by their own private judgments that subjects sin in obeying the commands of the commonwealth unless they themselves have first judged them to be lawful that their propriety in their riches is such as to exclude the dominion which the commonwealth that over the same that it is lawful for subjects to kill such as they call tyrants that the sovereign power may be divided and the like which come to be instilled into the people by this means they whom necessity or covetousness keepeth a tent on their trades and labour and they on the other side whom superfluity and sloth carryeth after their sensual pleasures which two sorts of men take of the greatest part of mankind being diverted from the deep meditation which the learning of truth not only in the matter of natural justice but also of all other sciences necessarily requireeth receive the notions of their duty chiefly from divines in the pulpit and partly from such of their neighbours or familiar acquaintance as having the faculty of discoursing readily and plausibly seem wiser and better learned in cases of law and conscience than themselves and the divines and such others as make sure of learning derive their knowledge from the universities and from the schools of law or from the books which by men eminent in those schools and universities have been published it is therefore manifest that the instruction of the people dependeth wholly on the right teaching of youth in the universities but are not may some men say the universities of England learn it enough or ready to do that or is it you will undertake to teach the universities hard questions yet to the first I doubt not to answer that till towards the later end of Henry the eighth the power of the pope was always upheld against the power of the commonwealth principally by the universities and that the doctrines maintain by so many preachers against the sovereign power of the king and by so many lawyers and others that had their education there is a sufficient argument that though the universities were not authors of those false doctrines yet they knew not how to plant the true for in such a contradiction of opinions it is most certain that they have not been sufficiently instructed and is no wonder if they yet retain a relish of that subtle liquor wherewith they were first seasoned against the civil authority but to the later question it is not fit nor needful for me to say either I or no for any man that sees what I am doing may easily perceive what I think the safety of the people require a further from him or them that have the sovereign power that justice be equally administered to all degrees of people that is that a well the rich and mighty as poor and obscure persons may be righted of the injuries done them so as the great may have no greater hope of impunity when they do violence dishonor any injury to the meaner sort than when one of these does the light to one of them for in this consistent equity to which as being a precept of the law of nature a sovereign is as much subject as any of the meanest of his people all breaches of the law are offenses against the commonwealth but there be some that are also against private persons those that concern the commonwealth only may without breach of equity be pardoned for every man may pardon what is done against himself according to his own discretion but an offense against the private man cannot in equity be pardoned without the consent of him that is injured or reasonable satisfaction the inequality of subjects proceeded from the acts of sovereign power and therefore has no more place in the presence of the sovereign that is to say in a court of justice than the inequality between kings and their subjects in the presence of the king of kings the honor of great persons is to be valued for their beneficence and the aids they give to men of inferior rank or not at all and the violences oppressions and injuries they do are not extenuated but aggravated by the greatness of their persons because they have least need to commit them the consequences of this partiality towards the great proceed in this manner impunity maketh insolence insolence hatred and hatred an endeavor to pull down all oppressing and contumelious greatness though with the ruin of the commonwealth to equal justice appertaineth also the equal imposition of taxes the equality or of dependent not on the equality of riches but on the equality of the debt that every man oweeth to the commonwealth for his defense it is not enough for a man to labor for the maintenance of his life but also to fight if need be for the securing of his labor they must either do as the jews did after their return from captivity and re-edifying the temple build with one hand and hold the sword in the other or else they must hire others to fight for them for the impositions that are laid on the people by the sovereign power are nothing else but the wages due to them that hold the public sword to defend private men in the exercise of several trades and callings seeing then the benefits that everyone receive with thereby is the enjoyment of life which is equally dear to poor and rich the debt which a poor man oweeth them that defend his life is the same which a rich man oweeth for the defense of his saving that the rich who have the service of the poor may be debtors not only for their own persons but for many more which considered the equality of imposition consistess rather in the equality of that which is consumed than of the riches of the persons that consume the same for what reason is there that he which laboreth much and sparing the fruits of his labor consumeeth little should be more charged than he that liveth idly getting little and spendeth all he gets seeing the one hath no more protection from the common wealth than the other but when the impositions are laid upon those things which men consume every man payeth equally for what he useth nor is the common wealth defrauded by the luxurious waste of private men and whereas many men by accident and inevitable become unable to maintain themselves by their labor they ought not to be left to the charity of private persons but to be provided for as far forth as the necessities of nature require by the laws of the common wealth for as it is uncharitableness in any man to neglect the impotent so it is in the sovereign of a common wealth to expose them to the hazard of such uncertain charity but for such as have strong bodies the cases otherwise there to be forced to work and to avoid the excuse of not finding employment there ought to be such laws as may encourage all manner of arts as navigation agriculture fishing and all manner of manufacture that requires labor the multitude of poor and yet strong people still increasing they are to be transplanted into countries not sufficiently inhabited where nevertheless they are not to exterminate those they find there but constrain them to inhabit closer together and not range a great deal of ground to snatch what they find but to court each little plot with art and labor to give them their sustenance in due season and when all the world is overcharged with inhabitants then the last remedy of all is war which provided for every man by victory or death to the care of the sovereign belongeth the making of good laws but what is a good law by a good law I mean not a just law for no law can be unjust the law is made by the sovereign power and all that is done by such power is warranted and owned by every one of the people and that which every man will have so no man can say is unjust it is in the laws of a common wealth as in the laws of gaming whatsoever the game stirs all agree on is injustice to none of them a good law is that which is needful for the good of the people and with all perspicuous for the use of laws which are but rules authorized is not to bind the people from all voluntary actions but to direct and keep them in such emotion as not to hurt themselves by their own impetuous desires rashness or indiscretion as hedges are set not to stop travelers but to keep them in the way and therefore a law is not needful having not the true end of a law is not good a law may be conceived to be good when it is for the benefit of the sovereign though it be not necessary for the people but it is not so for the good of the sovereign and people cannot be separated it is a weak sovereign that has weak subjects and a weak people whose sovereign wanteth power to rule them at his will unnecessary laws are not good laws but traps for money which where the right of sovereign powers acknowledged are superfluous and where it is not acknowledged insufficient to defend the people the perspicuity consists of not so much in the words of the law itself as in a declaration of the causes and motives for which it was made that is that shows us the meaning of the legislator and the meaning of the legislator known the law is more easily understood by few than many words for all words are subject to ambiguity and therefore multiplication of words in the body of the law is multiplication of ambiguity besides it seems to imply by too much diligence that whosoever can evade the words is without the compass of the law and this is a cause of many unnecessary processes for when I consider how short were the laws of ancient times and how they grew by degrees still longer me thinks I see a contention between the penners and pleaders of the law the former seeking to circumscribe the later and the later to evade their circumscriptions and the pleaders have got the victory it belongs therefore to the office of a legislator such as is in all common wealths the supreme representative be it one man or an assembly to make the reason perspicuous why the law was made and the body of the law itself as short but in as proper and significant terms as may be it belongeth also to the office of the sovereign to make a right application of punishments and rewards and seeing the end of punishing is not revenge and discharge of color but correction either of the offender of others by his example the severest punishments are to be inflicted for those crimes that are of most danger to the public such as are those which proceed from malice to the government established those that spring from contempt of justice those that provoke indignation in the multitude and those which unpunished seem authorized as when they are committed by sons servants of favorites of men in authority for indignation carryeth men not only against the actors and authors of injustice but against all power that is likely to protect them as in the case of Tarquin when for the insolent act of one of his sons he was driven out of Rome and the monarchy itself dissolved but crimes of infirmity such as are those which proceed from great provocation from great fear great need or from ignorance whether the fact be a great crime or not there is a place many times for lenity without prejudice to the commonwealth and lenity when there is such place for it is required by the law of nature the punishment of the leaders and teachers in a commotion not the poor seduced people when they are punished can profit the commonwealth by their example to be severe to the people is to punish that ignorance which may in great part be imputed to the sovereign whose fault it was that they were no better instructed in like Manrit belongeth to the office and duty of the sovereign to apply his rewards always so as there may arise from them benefit of the commonwealth wherein consisteth their use and end and is then done when they that have well served the commonwealth are with as little expense of the common treasure as is possible so well recompensed as others thereby may be encouraged both to serve the same as faithfully as they can and to study the arts by which they may be enabled to do it better to buy with money or preferment from a popular ambitious subject to be quiet and assist from making ill impressions in the minds of the people has nothing of the nature reward which is a day not for disservice but for service past nor a sign of gratitude but of fear nor does it tend to the benefit but to the damage of the public it is a contention with ambition like that of Hercules with the monster hydra which having many heads for every one that was vanquished there grew up three for in like manner when the stubbornness of one popular man is overcome with reward there rise many more by the example that do the same mischief in hope of like benefit and as all sorts of manufacture so also malice increases by being vendable and those sometimes the civil war may be differed by such ways as that yet the danger grows still the greater and the public ruin more assured it is therefore against the duty of the sovereign to whom the public safety is committed to reward those that aspire to greatness by disturbing the peace of their country and not rather to oppose the beginnings of such men with a little danger than after a longer time with greater another business of the sovereign is to choose good counselors i mean such whose advice he is to take in the government of the commonwealth for this word council concilium corrupted from concidium is a large signification and comprehended all assemblies of men that sit together not only to deliberate what is to be done here after but also to judge a fax past and of law for the present i take it here in the first sense only and in this sense there is no choice of counsel neither in a democracy nor aristocracy because the person's counseling are members of the person counseled the choice of counselors therefore is to monarchy in which the sovereign that endeavor not to make choice of those that in every kind of the most able discharges not his office as you ought to the most able counselors are they that have least hope of benefit by giving evil counsel and most knowledge of those things that conduce to the peace and offense of the commonwealth it is a hard matter to know who expected benefit from public troubles but the signs that guide to a just suspicion is the soothing of the people in their unreasonable or irremediable grievances by men whose estates are not sufficient to discharge their custom expenses and may easily be observed by anyone whom it concerns to know it but to know who has most knowledge of the public affairs is yet harder and they that know them need them a great deal the less for to know who knows the rules almost of any art is a great degree of the knowledge of the same art because no man can be assured of the truth of another's rules but he that is first taught to understand them but the best signs of knowledge of any art are much conversing in it and constant good effects of it good counsel comes not by lot nor by inheritance and therefore there is no more reason to expect good advice from the rich or noble in matter of state than in delineating the dimensions of a fortress unless we shall think there needs no method in the study of the politics as there does in the study of geometry but only to be lookers on which is not so for the politics is the hardest study of the two whereas in these parts of europe it has been taken for a right of certain persons to have place in the highest council of state by inheritance it is derived from the conquests of the ancient germans or in many absolute lords joining together to conquer other nations would not enter into the confederacy without such privileges as might be marks of difference in time following between their posterity and the posterity of their subjects which privileges being inconsistent with the sovereign power by the favor of the sovereign they may seem to keep but contending for them as their right they must needs by degrees let them go and have at last no further honor then adhere it naturally to their abilities and how able so ever be the counselors in any affair the benefit of their counselors greater when they give everyone is advice and reasons of it apart then when they do it in an assembly by way of orations and when they have premeditated then when they speak on the sudden both because they have more time to survey the consequences of action and a less subject to be carried away to contradiction through envy emulation or other passions arising from the difference of opinion the best counsel and those things that concern not other nations but only the ease and benefit the subjects may enjoy by laws that look only inward is to be taken from the general informations and complaints of the people of each province who are best acquainted with their own wants and ought therefore when they demand nothing in derogation of the essential rights of sovereignty to be diligently taken notice of for without those essential rights as I have often before said the common wealth cannot at all subsist a commander of an army in chief if he be not popular shall not be beloved nor feared as he ought to be by his army and consequently cannot perform that office with good success he must therefore be industrious valiant affable liberal and fortunate that he may gain an opinion both of sufficiency and of loving his soldiers this is popularity and breeds in the soldiers both desire and courage to recommend themselves to his favor and protects the severity of the general in punishing when need is the mutinous or negligent soldiers but this love of soldiers if caution be not given of the commander's fidelity is a dangerous thing to sovereign power especially when it is in the hands of an assembly not popular it belongeth therefore to the safety of the people both that they be good conductors and faithful subjects to whom the sovereign commits his armies but when the sovereign himself is popular that is reverenced and beloved of his people there is no danger at all from the popularity of a subject for soldiers are never so generally unjust as to side with their captain though they love him against their sovereign when they love not only his person but also his cause and therefore those who by violence have at any time suppressed the power of their lawful sovereign before they could settle themselves in his place have been always put to the trouble of contriving their titles to save the people from the shame of receiving them to have a known right to sovereign power is so popular equality as he that has it needs no more for his own part to turn the hearts of his subjects to him but that they see him able absolutely to govern his own family nor on the part of his enemies but at a spanning of their armies for the greatest the most active part of mankind has never hitherto been well contented with the present concerning the offices of one sovereign to another which are comprehended in that law which is commonly called the law of nations i need not say anything in this place because the law of nations and the law of nature is the same thing and every sovereign have the same right in procuring the safety of his people that any particular man can have in procuring the safety of his own body and the same law that dictated to men that have no civil government what they ought to do and what to avoid in regard of one another dictated the same to common wealths that is to the consciences of sovereign princes and sovereign assemblies there being no court of natural justice but in the conscience only we're not man but god reyneth whose laws such of them as oblige all mankind in respect of god as he is the author of nature are natural and in respect of the same god as he is king of kings are laws but of the kingdom of god as king of kings and as king also of peculiar people i shall speak in the rest of this discourse end of chapter 30 chapter 31 of leviathan this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox.org recording by leon mire leviathan by thomas hobs chapter 31 of the kingdom of god by nature that the condition of mere nature that is to say of absolute liberty such as is theirs that neither are sovereigns nor subjects is anarchy in the condition of war that the precepts by which men are guided to avoid that condition are the laws of nature that a common wealth without sovereign power is but a word without substance and cannot stand that subjects owe to sovereign simple obedience and all things wherein their obedience is not repugnant to the laws of god i have sufficiently proved in that which i have already written there once only for the entire knowledge of civil duty to know what are those laws of god for without that a man knows not when he has commanded anything by the civil power whether it be contrary to the law of god or not and so either by too much civil obedience offends the divine majesty or through fear of offending god transgresses the commandments of the common wealth to avoid both these rocks it is necessary to know what are the laws divine and seeing the knowledge of all law dependeth on the knowledge of the sovereign power i shall say something in that which followeth of the kingdom of god god is king let the earth rejoice psalms 97 1 say it the psalmist and again god is king though the nations be angry and he that sitteth on the chariobim though the earth be moved i bid 99 1 whether men will or not they must be subject always to the divine power by denying the existence or providence of god men may shake off their ease but not their yoke but to call this power of god which extended itself not only to man but also to beasts and plants and bodies and animate by the name of kingdom is but a metaphorical use of the word for he only is properly said to rain that governs his subjects by his word and by promise of rewards to those that obey it by threatening them with punishment that obey it not subjects therefore in the kingdom of god are not bodies inanimate nor creatures irrational because they understand no precepts as his nor atheists nor they that believe not that god has any care of the actions of mankind because they acknowledge no word for his nor have hope of his rewards or fear of his threatenings they therefore that believe there is a god that governeth the world and have given precepts and propounded rewards and punishments to mankind are god subjects all the rest are to be understood as enemies to rule by words requires that such words be manifestly made known for else there are no laws for to the nature of laws belong at the sufficient and clear promulgation such as may take away the excuse of ignorance which in the laws of men is but of one only kind and that is proclamation or promulgation by the voice of man but god declared his laws three ways by the dictates of natural reason by revelation and by the voice of some man to whom by the operation of miracles he procured with credit with the rest from hence there arises a triple word of god rational sensible and prophetic to which corresponded the triple hearing right reason sense supernatural and faith as for sense supernatural which consisteth in revelation or inspiration there have not been any universal laws so given because god speaketh not in that manner but to particular persons and to diverse men diverse things from the difference between the other two kinds of god's word rational and prophetic there may be attributed to god a twofold kingdom natural wherein he governeth as many of mankind as acknowledge his providence by the natural dictates of right reason and prophetic wherein having chosen out one peculiar nation the Jews for his subjects he govern them and none but them not only by natural reason but by positive laws which he gave them by the mouths of his holy prophets of the natural kingdom of god i intend to speak in this chapter the right of nature whereby god reigneth over men and punisheth those that break his laws is to be derived not from his creating them as if he required obedience as of gratitude for his benefits but from his irresistible power i have formerly shown how the sovereign right arises from packed to show how the same right may arise from nature requires no more but to show in what case it is never taken away seeing all men by nature had right to all things they had right everyone to reign over all the rest but because this right could not be obtained by force it concerned the safety of everyone laying by that right to set up men with sovereign authority by common consent to rule and defend them whereas if there had been any man of power irresistible there had been no reason why he should not by that power have ruled and defended both himself and them according to his own discretion to those therefore whose power is irresistible the dominion of all men adheres naturally by their excellence of power and consequently it is from that power that the kingdom over men in the right of afflicting men at his pleasure belongeth naturally to God Almighty not as creator and gracious but as omnipotent and though punishment be due for sin only because by that word is understood affliction for sin yet the right of afflicting is not always derived from men sin but from God's power this question why evil men often prosper and good men suffer adversity has been much disputed by the ancient and is the same with this of ours by what right God dispenseth the prosperities and adversities of this life and is of that difficulty as it has shaken the faith not only of the vulgar but of philosophers and which is more of the saints concerning the divine providence how good says david is the god of israel to those who were upright and heart and yet my feet were almost gone my treading's had well I slipped for I was grieved at the wicked when I saw the ungodly and such prosperity psalm seventy three one through three and Job how earnestly does he expostulate with God for the many afflictions he suffered not withstanding his righteousness this question in the case of Job is decided by God himself not by arguments derived from God's sin but his own power for whereas the friends of Job drew their arguments from his affliction to his sin and he defended himself by the conscience of his innocence God himself ticket up the matter and having justified the affliction by arguments drawn from his power such as this where was thou when I laid the foundations of the earth Job thirty eight four and the like both approved Job's innocence and reprove the erroneous doctrine of his friends conformable to this doctrine is the sentence of our savior concerning the man that was born blind in these words neither had this men sinned nor his fathers but that the works of God might be made manifest in him and though it be said that death entered into the world by sin by which is meant that if Adam had never sinned he had never died that is never suffered any separation of his soul from his body it follows not thence that God could not justly have afflicted him though he had not sinned as well as afflicted other living creatures that cannot sin having spoken of the right of God's sovereignty as grounded only on nature we are to consider next what are the divine laws or dictates of natural reason which laws concern either the natural duties of one man to another or the honor naturally due to our divine sovereign the first are the same laws of nature of which I have spoken already in the 14th and 15th chapters of this treatise namely equity justice mercy humility and the rest of the moral virtues it remained therefore that we consider what precepts are dictated to men by their natural reason only without other word of God touching the honor and worship of the divine majesty honor consisted in the inward thought and opinion of the power and goodness of another and therefore to honor God is to think as highly of his power and goodness as is possible and of that opinion the external signs appearing in the words and actions of men are called worship which is one part of that which the latins understand by the word cultists for cultists signify it properly and constantly that labor which a man bestows on anything with a purpose to make benefit by it now those things where we make benefit are either subject to us and the profit they yield follow the labor we bestow upon them as a natural effect or they are not subject to us but answer our labor according to their own wills in the first sense the labor bestowed on the earth is called culture and the education of children a culture of their minds in the second sense where men's wills are to be brought to our purpose not by force but by complacence it signify it as much as courting that is winning a favor by good offices as by praises by acknowledging their power and by what so ever is pleasing to them from whom we look for any benefit and this is properly worship in which since publicala is understood for a worshipper of the people and cultist day for the worship of God from internal honor consisting in the opinion of power and goodness arise three passions love which hath reference to goodness and hope and fear that relate to power and three parts of external worship praise magnifying and blessing the subject of praise being goodness the subject of magnifying and blessing being power and the effect thereof felicity praise and magnifying are signified both by words and actions by words when we say a man is good or great by actions when we thank him for his bounty and obey his power the opinion of the happiness of another can only be expressed by words there be some signs of honor both in attributes and actions that be naturally so as amongst attributes good just liberal and the like and amongst actions prayers thanks and obedience others are so by institution or custom of men and in sometimes in places are honorable in others dishonorable in others indifferent such as are the gestures and salutation prayer and thanksgiving indifferent times and places differently used the former is natural the latter arbitrary worship and of arbitrary worship there be two differences for sometimes it is commanded sometimes voluntary worship commanded when it is such as he require it who is worshipped free when it is such as the worshipper things fit when it is commanded not the words or gesture but the obedience is the worship but when free the worship consists in the opinion of the beholders for if to them the words or actions by which we intend honor seem ridiculous and tending to contumely they are no worship because no signs of honor and no signs of honor because a sign is not a sign to him that giveth it but to him to whom it is made that is to the spectator again there is a public and private worship public is the worship that a commonwealth performeth as one person private is that which a private person exhibiteth public in respect of the whole commonwealth is free but in respect of particular men it is not so private is in secret free but in the site of the multitude it is never without some restraint either from the laws or from the opinion of men which is contrary to the nature of liberty the end of worship amongst men is power for where a man seeeth another worshipped he supposeth him powerful and is the readier to obey him which makes his power greater but God has no ends the worship we do him proceeds from our duty and is directed according to our capacity by those rules of honor that reason dictated to be done by the weak to the more potent men in hope of benefit for fear of damage or in thankfulness for good already received from them that we may know what worship of God is taught us by the light of nature I will begin with his attributes where first it is manifest we ought to attribute to him existence for no man can have will to honor that which he thinks not to have any being secondly that those philosophers who said the world or the soul of the world was God spake unworthily of him and denied his existence for by God is understood the cause of the world and to say the world is God is to say there is no cause of it that is no God thirdly to say the world was not created but eternal seeing that which is eternal has no cause is to deny there is a God fourthly that they who attributing as they think ease to God take from him the care of mankind take from him his honor for it takes away men's love and fear of him which is the root of honor faithly and those things that signify greatness and power to say he is finite is not to honor him for it is not a sign of the will to honor God to attribute to him less than we can and finite is less than we can because the finite it is easy to add more therefore to attribute figure to him is not honor for all figure is finite nor to say we conceive and imagine or have an idea of him in our mind for whatsoever we conceive is finite nor to attribute to him parts or totality which are the attributes only of things finite nor to say he is in this or that place for whatsoever is in place is bounded and finite nor that he is moved or rested for both these attributes ascribed to him place nor that there be more gods than one because it implies them all finite for there cannot be more than one infinite nor to ascribe to him unless metaphorically meaning not the passion but the effect passions that partake of grief as repentance anger mercy or of want as appetite hope desire or of any passive faculty for passion is power limited by somewhat else and therefore when we ascribe to God a will it is not to be understood as that of man for a rational appetite but as the power by which he affected everything likewise when we attribute to him sight and other acts of sense as also knowledge and understanding which in us is nothing else but a tumult of the mind raised by external things that press the organical parts of man's body for there is no such thing in God and being things that depend on natural causes cannot be attributed to him he that will attribute to God nothing but what is warranted by natural reason must either use such negative attributes as infinite eternal incomprehensible or superlatives as most high most great and the like or indefinite as good just holy creator and in such sense as if he meant not to declare what he is for that were to circumscribe him within the limits of our fancy but how much we admire him and how ready we would be to obey him which is a sign of humility and of a will to honor him as much as we can for there is but one name to signify our conception of his nature and that is I am and but one name of his relation to us and that is God and which is contained father king and lord concerning the actions of divine worship it is a most general preceptive reason that they be signs of the intention to honor God such as our first prayers for not the carvers when they made images were thought to make them gods but the people that prayed to them secondly thanksgiving which differs from prayer and divine worship no otherwise than that prayers precede and thanks exceed the benefit the end both of the one and the other being to acknowledge God for author of all benefits as well past as future thirdly gifts that is to say sacrifices and oblations if they be of the best our signs of honor for they are thanksgivings fourthly not to swear by any but God is naturally a sign of honor for it is a confession that God only know at the heart and that no man's wit or strength can protect a man against God's vengeance on the perjured fifthly it is a part of rational worship to speak considerably of God for it argues a fear of him and fear is a confession of his power hence followeth that the name of God is not to be used rashly and to no purpose for that is as much as in vain and it is to no purpose unless it be by way of oath and by order of the commonwealth to make judgments certain or between commonwealths to avoid war and that disputing of God's nature is contrary to his honor for it is supposed that in this natural kingdom of God there is no other way to know anything but by natural reason that is from the principles of natural science which are so far from teaching us anything of God's nature as they cannot teach us our own nature nor the nature of the smallest creature living and therefore when men out of the principles of natural reason dispute of the attributes of God they but dishonor him for in the attributes which we give to God we are not to consider the signification of philosophical truth but the signification of pious intention to do him the greatest honor we are able from the want of which consideration have preceded the volumes of disputation about the nature of God that tend not to his honor but to the honor of our own wits and learning and are nothing else but inconsiderate and vain abuses of his sacred name. Sixthly, in prayers, thanksgivings, offerings, and sacrifices it is a dictate of natural reason that they be everyone in his kind the best and most significant of honor as for example that prayers and thanksgivings be made in words and phrases not sudden nor light nor plebeian but beautiful and well composed for else we do not God as much honor as we can and therefore the heathens did absurdly to worship images for gods but they're doing it in verse and with music both of voice and instruments was reasonable also that the beast they offered in sacrifice and the gifts they offered and their actions and worshiping were full of submission and commemorative of benefits received was according to reason as proceeding from an intention to honor him. Seventhly, reason directed not only to worship God in secret but also and especially in public and in the sight of men for without that that which his honor is most acceptable that procuring others to honor him is lost. Lastly, obedience to his laws that is in this case to the laws of nature is the greatest worship of all for as obedience is more acceptable to God than sacrifice so also to set light by his commandments is the greatest of all contumelies and these are the laws of that divine worship which natural reason dictated to private men but seeing a common wealth is but one person it ought also to exhibit to God but one worship which then it doth when it commanded it to be exhibited by private men publicly and this is public worship the property whereof is to be uniform for those actions that are done differently by different men cannot be said to be a public worship and therefore where many sorts of worship be allowed proceeding from the different religions of private men it cannot be said there is any public worship nor that the common wealth is of any religion at all and because words and consequently the attributes of God have their signification by agreement and constitution of men those attributes are to be held significative of honor that men intend shall so be and whatsoever may be done by the wills of particular men where there is no law but reason may be done by the will of the common wealth by law civil and because a common wealth hath no will nor makes no laws but those that are made by the will of him or them that have the sovereign power it follow it that those attributes which the sovereign ordaineth in the worship of God for signs of honor ought to be taken and used for such by private men in their public worship but because not all actions are signs by constitution but some are naturally signs of honor others of contumely these latter which are those that men are ashamed to do in the sight of them they reverence cannot be made by human power a part of divine worship nor the former such as our decent modest humble behavior ever be separated from it but whereas there be an infinite number of actions and gestures of an indifferent nature such of them as the common wealth shall ordain to be publicly and universally in use as signs of honor and part of God's worship are to be taken and used for such by the subjects and that which is said in the scripture it is better to obey God than man hath place in the kingdom of God by pact and not by nature having thus briefly spoken of the natural kingdom of God and his natural laws I will add only to this chapter a short declaration of his natural punishments there is no action of man in this life that is not the beginning of so long a chain of consequences as no human providence is high enough to give a man a prospect to the end and in this chain there are linked together both pleasing and unpleasing events in such manner as he that will do anything for his pleasure must engage himself to suffer all the pains and next to it and these pains are the natural punishments of those actions which are the beginning of more harm than good and hereby it comes to pass that intemperance is naturally punished with diseases rashness with mischances injustice with the violence of enemies pride with ruin cowardice with oppression negligent government of princes with rebellion and rebellion with slaughter for seeing punishments are consequent to the breach of laws natural punishments must be naturally consequent to the breach of the laws of nature and therefore follow them as their natural not arbitrary effects and thus far concerning the constitution nature and right of sovereigns and concerning the duty of subjects derived from the principles of natural reason and now considering how different this doctrine is from the practice of the greatest part of the world especially of these western parts that have received their moral learning from Rome and Athens and how much depth of moral philosophy is required in them that have the administration of the sovereign power I am at the point of believing this my labor as useless as the commonwealth of Plato for he also is of opinion that it is impossible for the disorders of state and change of governments by civil war ever to be taken away till sovereigns be philosophers but when I consider again that the science of natural justice is the only science necessary for sovereigns and the principal ministers and that they need not be charged with the sciences mathematical as by Plato they are further than by good laws to encourage men to the study of them and that neither Plato nor any other philosopher hitherto hath put into order and sufficiently or probably proved all the theorems of moral doctrine that men may learn thereby both how to govern and how to obey I recover some hope that one time or other this writing of mine may fall into the hands of a sovereign who will consider it himself for it is short and I think clear without the help of any interested or envious interpreter and by the exercise of entire sovereignty in protecting the public teaching of it convert this truth of speculation into the utility of practice end of chapter 31 this concludes the reading of leviathan or the matter form and power of a commonwealth ecclesiastical and civil parts one and two by thomas hobs