59. All men desire to obtain good and to avoid evil, especially death. Hence, they have a natural right to preserve their own lives and limbs, and to use all means necessary for this end. Every man is judge for himself of the necessity of the means, and the greatness of the danger. And hence, he has a right by nature to all things, to do what he wills to others, to possess and enjoy all he can. For he is the only judge whether they tend or not to his preservation. But every other man has the same right. Hence, there can be no injury towards another in a state of nature. Not that in such a state a man may not sin against God, or transgress the laws of nature.[348] But injury, which is doing anything without right, implies human laws that limit right.
[348] Non quod in tali statu peccare in Deum, aut leges naturales violare impossibile sit. Nam injustitia erga homines supponit leges humanas, quales in statu naturali nullæ sunt. De Cive, c. 1. This he left out in the later treatises. He says afterwards (sect. 28), omne damnum homini illatum legis naturalis violatio atque in Deum injuria est.
60. Thus the state of man in natural liberty is a state of war, a war of every man against every man, wherein the notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have no place. Irresistible might gives of itself right, which is nothing but the physical liberty of using our power as we will for our own preservation and what we deem conducive to it. But as, through the equality of natural powers, no man possesses this irresistible superiority, this state of universal war is contrary to his own good which he necessarily must desire. Hence, his reason dictates that he should seek peace as far as he can, and strengthen himself by all the helps of war against those with whom he cannot have peace. This, then, is the first fundamental law of nature. For a law of nature is nothing else than a rule or precept found out by reason for the avoiding what may be destructive to our life.
61. From this primary rule another follows, that a man should be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defence of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down his right to all things, and to be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow to other men against himself. This may be done by renouncing his right to anything, which leaves it open to all, or by transferring it specially to another. Some rights indeed, as those to his life and limbs, are inalienable, and no man lays down the right of resisting those who attack them. But, in general, he is bound not to hinder those to whom he has granted or abandoned his own right, from availing themselves of it; and such hindrance is injustice or injury; that is, it is sine jure, his jus being already gone. Such injury may be compared to absurdity in argument, being in contradiction to what he has already done, as an absurd proposition is in contradiction to what the speaker has already allowed.
62. The next law of nature, according to Hobbes, is that men should fulfil their covenants. What contracts and covenants are, he explains in the usual manner. None can covenant with God, unless by special revelation; therefore, vows are not binding, nor do oaths add anything to the swearer’s obligation. But covenants entered into by fear he holds to be binding in a state of nature, though they may be annulled by the law. That the observance of justice, that is, of our covenants, is never against reason, Hobbes labours to prove, for if ever its violation may have turned out successful, this being contrary to probable expectation ought not to influence us. “That which gives to human actions the relish of justice, is a certain nobleness or gallantness of courage rarely found; by which a man scorns to be beholden for the contentment of his life to fraud or breach of promise.”[349] A short gleam of something above the creeping selfishness of his ordinary morality!
[349] Leviathan, c. 15.
63. He then enumerates many other laws of nature, such as gratitude, complaisance, equity, all subordinate to the main one of preserving peace, by the limitation of the natural right, as he supposes, to usurp all. These laws are immutable and eternal; the science of them is the only true science of moral philosophy. For that is nothing but the science of what is good and evil in the conversation and society of mankind. In a state of nature private appetite is the measure of good and evil. But all men agree that peace is good, and therefore the means of peace, which are the moral virtues or laws of nature, are good also, and their contraries evil. These laws of nature are not properly called such, but conclusions of reason as to what should be done or abstained from; they are but theorems concerning what conduces to conservation and defence; whereas, law is strictly the word of him that by right has command over others. But so far as these are enacted by God in Scripture, they are truly laws.
64. These laws of nature, being contrary to our natural passions, are but words of no strength to secure any one without a controlling power. For till such a power is erected, every man will rely on his own force and skill. Nor will the conjunction of a few men or families be sufficient for security, nor that of a great multitude guided by their own particular judgments and appetites. “For if we could suppose a great multitude of men to consent in the observation of justice and other laws of nature without a common power to keep them all in awe, we might as well suppose all mankind to do the same, and then there neither would be, nor need to be, any civil government or commonwealth at all, because there would be peace without subjection.”[350] Hence, it becomes necessary to confer all their power on one man, or assembly of men, to bear their person or represent them; so that every one shall own himself author of what shall be done by such representative. It is a covenant of each with each, that he will be governed in such a manner, if the other will agree to the same. This is the generation of the great Leviathan, or mortal God, to whom, under the immortal God, we owe our peace and defence. In him consists the essence of the commonwealth, which is one person, of whose acts a great multitude by mutual covenant have made themselves the authors.
[350] Lev., c. 17.
65. This person (including of course an assembly as well as individual) is the sovereign, and possesses sovereign power. And such power may spring from agreement or from force. A commonwealth by agreement or institution is when a multitude do agree and covenant one with another that whatever the major part shall agree to represent them, shall be the representative of them all. After this has been done, the subjects cannot change their government without its consent, being bound by mutual covenant to own its actions. If any one man should dissent, the rest would break their covenant with him. But there is no covenant with the sovereign. He cannot have covenanted with the whole multitude, as one party, because it has no collective existence till the commonwealth is formed; nor with each man separately, because the acts of the sovereign are no longer his sole acts, but those of the society, including him who would complain of the breach. Nor can the sovereign act unjustly towards a subject; for he who acts by another’s authority cannot be guilty of injustice towards him; he may, it is true, commit iniquity, that is, violate the laws of God and nature, but not injury.