nevertheless not only maintained, but also increased their power, partly by the labour of trading from one place to another, and partly by selling the manufactures whereof the materials were brought in from other places.

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The distribution of the materials of this nourishment, is the constitution of "mine," and "thine," and "his; " that is to say, in one word propriety;" and belongeth in all kinds of commonwealth to the sovereign power. For where there is no commonwealth there is, as hath been already shown, a perpetual war of every man against his neighbour; and therefore everything is his that getteth it, and keepeth it by force; which is neither "propriety nor "community; but uncertainty." Which is so evident, that even Cicero, a passionate defender of liberty, in a public pleading, attributeth all propriety to the law civil. "Let the civil law," saith he, "be once abandoned, or but negligently guarded, not to say oppressed, and there is nothing, that any man can be sure to receive from his ancestor, or leave to his children." And again, "Take away the civil law, and no man knows what is his own, and what another man's." Seeing therefore the introduction of "propriety" is an effect of commonwealth, which can do nothing but by the person that represents it, it is the act only of the sovereign; and consisteth in the laws, which none can make that have not the sovereign power. And this they well knew of old, who called that Nóuos, that is to say, distribution," which we call law; and defined justice, by distributing " to every man his own."

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In this distribution, the first law is for division of the land itself: wherein the sovereign assigneth to every man a portion, according as he, and not according as any subject, or any number of them, shall judge agreeable to equity, and the common good. The children of Israel were a commonwealth in the wilderness; but wanted the commodities of the earth, till they were masters of the Land of Promise; which afterwards was divided amongst them, not by their own discretion, but by the discretion of Eleazar the Priest and Joshua their General, who, when there were twelve tribes, making them thirteeen by subdivision of the tribe of Joseph, made nevertheless but twelve portions of the land; and ordained for the tribe of Levi no land; but assigned them the tenth part of the whole fruits; which division was therefore arbitrary. And though a people coming into possession of a land by war, do not always exterminate the ancient inhabitants, as did the Jews, but leave to many, or most, or all of them their estates; yet it is manifest they hold them afterwards, as of the victors' distribution; as the people of England held all theirs of William the Conqueror.

From whence we may collect, that the propriety which a subject hath in his lands, consisteth in a right to exclude all other subjects from the use of them; and not to exclude their sovereign, be it an assembly or a monarch. For seeing the sovereign, that is to say, the commonwealth, whose person he representeth, is understood to do nothing but in order to the common peace and security, this distribution of lands is to be understood as done in order to the same: and consequently, whatsoever distribution he shall make in prejudice thereof, is contrary to the will of every subject that committed his peace and safety to his discretion and conscience; and therefore by the will of every one of them, it is to be reputed void. It is true that a sovereign monarch, or the greater part of a sovereign asseinbly, may ordain the doing of many things in pursuit of their passions, contrary to their own consciences, which is a breach of trust and of the law of Nature; but this is not enough to authorize any subject, either to make war upon, or so much as to accuse of injustice, or any way to speak evil of their sovereign; because they have authorized all his actions, and in bestowing the sovereign power, made them their own. But in what cases the commands of

sovereigns are contrary to equity and the law of Nature, is to be considered hereafter in another place.

war.

In the distribution of land, the commonwealth itself, may be conceived to have a portion, and possess and improve the same by their representative; and that such portion may be made sufficient to sustain the whole expense to the common peace and defence necessarily required. Which were very true, if there could be any representative conceived free from human passions and infirmities. But the nature of men being as it is, the setting forth of public land, or of any certain revenue for the commonwealth, is in vain; and tendeth to the dissolution of government, and to the condition of mere nature and war, as soon as ever the sovereign power falleth into the hands of a monarch, or of an assembly, that are either too negligent of money, or too hazardous in engaging the public stock into a long or costly Commonwealths can endure no diet: for seeing their expense is not limited by their own appetite, but by external accidents and the appetites of their neighbours, the public riches cannot be limited by other limits than those which the emergent occasions shall require. And whereas in England, there were by the Conqueror divers lands reserved to his own use, besides forests and chases, either for his recreation, or preservation of woods, and divers services reserved on the land he gave his subjects; yet it seems they were not reserved for his maintenance in his public, but in his natural capacity. For he and his successors did for all that lay arbitrary taxes on all subjects' land, when they judged it necessary. Or if those public lands and services were ordained as a sufficient maintenance of the commonwealth, it was contrary to the scope of the institution; being, as it appeared by those ensuing taxes, insufficient, and, as it appears by the late small revenue of the crown, subject to alienation and diminution. It is therefore in vain to assign a portion to the commonwealth; which may sell, or give it away; and does sell and give it away, when it is done by their representative.

As the distribution of lands at home; so also to assign in what places, and for what commodities, the subject shall traffic abroad, belongeth to the sovereign. For if it did belong to private persons to use their own discretion therein, some of them would be drawn for gain, both to furnish the enemy with means to hurt the commonwealth and hurt it themselves, by importing such things, as pleasing men's appetites, be nevertheless noxious, or at least unpofitable to them. And therefore it belongeth to the common.. wealth, that is, to the sovereign only, to approve or disapprove both of the places and matter of foreign traffic.

Further, seeing it is not enough to the sustentation of a commonwealth, that every man have a propriety in a portion of land, or in some few commodities, or a natural property in some useful art, and there is no art in the world, but is necessary either for the being or well-being almost of every particular man; it is necessary that men distribute that which they can spare, and transfer their propriety therein, mutually one to another by exchange and mutual contract. And therefore it belongeth to the commonwealth, that is to say, to the sovereign, to appoint in what manner all kinds of contract between subjects, as buying, selling, exchanging, borrowing, lending, letting and taking to hire, are to be made; and by what words and signs they shall be understood for valid. And for the matter and distribution of the nourishment, to the several members of the commonwealth, thus much, considering the model of the whole work, is sufficient.

By concoction I understand the reducing of all commodities which are not presently consumed, but reserved for nourishment in time to come, to something of equal value, and withal so portable as not to hinder the motion of men from place to place; to the end a man may have in what

place soever such nourishment as the place affordeth. And this is nothing else but gold, and silver, and money. For gold and silver, being, as it happens, almost in all countries of the world highly valued, is a commodious measure of the value of all things else between nations; and money, of what matter soever coined by the sovereign of a commonwealth, is a sufficient measure of the value of all things else between the subjects of that commonwealth. By the means of which measures all commodities, movable and immovable, are made to accompany a man to all places of his resort, within and without the place of his ordinary residence; and the same passeth from man to man within the commonwealth; and goes round about, nourishing as it passeth every part thereof; insomuch as this concoction is as it were the sanguification of the commonwealth; for natural blood is in like manner made of the fruits of the earth, and circulating, nourisheth by the way every member of the body of man.

And because silver and gold have their value from the matter itself, they have first this privilege, that the value of them cannot be altered by the power of one, nor of a few commonwealths, as being a common measure of the commodities of all places. But base money may easily be enhanced or abased. Secondly, they have the privilege to make commonwealths move, and stretch out their arms, when need is, into foreign countries, and supply, not only private subjects that travel, but also whole armies with provision. But that coin, which is not considerable for the matter, but for the stamp of the place, being unable to endure change of air, hath its effect at home only; where also it is subject to the change of laws, and thereby to have the value diminished, to the prejudice many times of those that have it.

The conduits and ways by which it is conveyed to the public use, are of two sorts: one, that conveyeth it to the public coffers; the other, that issueth the same out again for public payments. Of the first sort, are collectors, receivers, and treasurers; of the second are the treasurers again, and the officers appointed for payment of several public or private minisAnd in this also, the artificial man maintains his resemblance with the natural; whose veins receiving the blood from the several parts of the body, carry it to the heart, where being made vital, the heart by the arteries sends it out again, to enliven, and enable for motion all the members of the

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same.

The procreation or children of a commonwealth are those we call "plantations," or "colonies," which are numbers of men sent out from the commonwealth, under a conductor or governor, to inhabit a foreign country, either formerly void of inhabitants, or made void then by war. And when a colony is settled, they are either a commonwealth of themselves, discharged of their subjection to their sovereign that sent them, as hath been done by many commonwealths of ancient time, in which case the commonwealth from which they went was called their metropolis or mother, and requires no more of them, than fathers require of the children whom they emancipate and make free from their domestic government, which is honour and friendship; or else they remain united to their metropolis, as were the colonies of the people of Rome; and then they are no commonwealths themselves, but provinces, and parts of the commonwealth that sent them. So that the right of colonies, saving honour and league with their metropolis, dependeth wholly on their license or letters, by which their sovereign authorized them to plant.

CHAPTER XXV.

Of Counsel.

How fallacious it is to judge of the nature of things by the ordinary and inconstant use of words, appeareth in nothing more than in the confusion of counsels and commands, arising from the imperative manner of speaking in them both, and in many other occasions besides. For the words "do this," are the words not only of him that commandeth, but also of him that giveth counsel, and of him that exhorteth; and yet there are but sew that see not that these are very different things, or that cannot distinguish between them when they perceive who it is that speaketh, and to whom the speech is directed, and upon what occasion. But finding those phrases in men's writings, and being not able or not willing to enter into a consideration of the circumstances, they mistake sometimes the precepts of counsellors for the precepts of them that command; and sometimes the contrary, according as it best agreeth with the conclusions they would infer, or the actions they approve. To avoid which mistakes, and render to those terms of com manding, counselling, and exhorting their proper and distinct significations, I define them thus.

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Command" " is, where a man saith "do this," or "do not this," without expecting other reason than the will of him that says it. From this it followeth manifestly, that he that commandeth, pretendeth thereby his own benefit for the reason of his command is his own will only, and the proper object of every man's will, is some good to himself.

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Counsel," is where a man saith, "do," or "do not this," and deduceth his reasons from the benefit that arriveth by it to him to whom he saith it. And from this it is evident, that he that giveth counsel, pretendeth only, whatsoever he intendeth, the good of him to whom he giveth it.

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Therefore between counsel and command, one great difference is, that command is directed to a man's own benefit; and counsel to the benefit of another man. And from this ariseth another difference, that a man may be obliged to do what he is commanded; as when he hath covenanted to obey but he cannot be obliged to do as he is counselled, because the hurt of not following it, is his own; or if he should covenant to follow it, then is the counsel turned into the nature of a command. A third difference between them is, that no man can pretend a right to be of another man's counsel; because he is not to pretend benefit by it to himself: but to demand right to counsel another, argues a will to know his designs, or to gain some other good to himself: which, as I said before, is of every man's will the proper object.

This also is incident to the nature of counsel; that whatsoever it be, he that asketh it, cannot in equity accuse or punish it : for to ask counsel of another, is to permit him to give such counsel as he shall think best; and consequently, he that giveth counsel to his sovereign, whether a monarch, or an assembly, when he asketh it, cannot in equity be punished for it, whether the same be conformable to the opinion of the most, or not, so it be to the proposition in debate. For if the sense of the assembly can be taken notice of, before the debate be ended, they should neither ask nor take any further counsel; for the sense of the assembly is the resolution of the debate, and end of all deliberation. And generally he that demandeth counsel, is author of it; and therefore cannot punish it; and what the sovereign cannot, no man else can. But if one subject giveth counsel to another, to do anything contrary to the laws, whether that counsel

proceed from evil intention, or from ignorance only, it is punishable by the commonwealth; because ignorance of the law is no good excuse, where every man is bound to take notice of the laws to which he is subject.

"Exhortation" and "dehortation" is counsel, accompanied with signs in him that giveth it, of vehement desire to have it followed: or to say it more briefly, "counsel vehemently pressed." For he that exhorteth, doth not deduce the consequences of what he adviseth to be done, and tie himself therein to the rigour of true reasoning; but encourages him he counselleth to action: as he that dehorteth, deterreth him from it. And therefore they have in their speeches, a regard to the common passions and opinions of men, in deducing their reasons; and make use of simili. tudes, metaphors, examples, and other tools of oratory, to persuade their hearers of the utility, honour, or justice of following their advice.

From whence may be inferred, first, that exhortation and dehortation is directed to the good of him that giveth the counsel, not of him that asketh it, which is contrary to the duty of a counsellor; who, by the definition of counsel, ought to regard not his own benefit, but his whom he adviseth. And that he directeth his counsel to his own benefit, is manifest enough, by the long and vehement urging, or by the artificial giving thereof; which being not required of him, and consequently proceeding from his own occasions, is directed principally to his own benefit, and but accidentally to the good of him that is counselled, or not at all.

Secondly, that the use of exhortation and dehortation lieth only where a man is to speak to a multitude; because when the speech is addressed to one, he may interrupt him, and examine his reasons more rigorously than can be done in a multitude; which are too many to enter into dispute and dialogue with him that speaketh indifferently to them all at once.

Thirdly, that they that exhort and dehort, where they are required to give counsel, are corrupt counsellors, and as it were bribed by their own interest. For though the counsel they give be never so good; yet he that gives it, is no more a good counsellor than he that giveth a just sentence for a reward is a just judge. But where a man may lawfully command, as a father in his family, or a leader in an army, his exhortations and dehortations are not only lawful, but also necessary and laudable. But then they are no more counsels but commands; which when they are for execution of sour labour, sometimes necessity and always humanity requireth to be sweetened in the delivery by encouragement, and in the tune and phrase of counsel, rather than in harsher language of command.

Examples of the difference between command and counsel we may take from the forms of speech that express them in Holy Scripture. "Have no other gods but me;' "make to thyself no graven image;' " "take not God's name in vain ; "sanctify the Sabbath; "honour thy parents; "kill not; "steal not," &c., are commands; because the reason for which we are to obey them is drawn from the will of God our king, whom we are obliged to obey. But these words, "Sell all thou hast; give it to the poor; and follow me," are counsel; because the reason for which we are to do so, is drawn from our own benefit; which is this, that we shall have "treasure in heaven. These words, "Go into the village over against you, and you shall find an ass tied, and her colt; loose her, and bring her to me,' are a command; for the reason of their fact is drawn from the will of their Master: but these words, "Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus," are counsel; because the reason why we should so do, tendeth not to any benefit of God Almighty, who shall still be king in what manner soever we rebel; but of ourselves, who have no other means of avoiding the punishment hanging over us for our sins.

As the difference of counsel from command hath been now deduced from